/lit/ - Literature

there are alot of book on Renaissance theory, what it is, what it meant, it's politics, etc, etc . Of those Burckhardt is still excellent.
As far as art goes i dont know of any single great book except Vasari's lives of the artists, that, while worth reading, is much more a gossip column then anything else. There is no single great modern book on the subject.
Off the cuff I can recommend


The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance by Peter Murray - It may have been my first book, and though i dont remember much i dont believe it steered me wrong.

Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy - i now think it was more wrong then right but at the time it gave all the assurances my young mind required, and i remember thinking my opinions were quite sophisticated afterwords.


Rome, 1630 by Yves Bonnefoy - very unorthodox, with a spotty translation, and very french. Excellent! but not a good first book.


Ruskin's The Stones of Venice - the great book on Venice. Maybe one of the great books of the English language, it is to be supplemented with a history of the city ( i recommend Norwich) Honestly Everything Ruskin wrote is worth reading though you should know he will lead you down some very wrong paths.

Pic related - rather scholarly and eccentric even for that lot, but i enjoyed it.


There much more but just read a jew of these and come back later when i can be bothered to think about this more.

That's rather broad topic. For example i just read pic related which is great but IDK if it's what you are looking for.

I also read Herbert Read's The Art of Sculpture, which is a little less specific.