The Renaissance

[Anonymous No.19950436]

What are the best books about Renaissance art and history?

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2398

[Anonymous No.19950447]

>>19950436
The Will Durant book is really good

[Anonymous No.19950476]

Jacob Burckhardt

[Anonymous No.19950674]

>>19950436
A World Lit Only by Fire

[Anonymous No.19951378]

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.

[Anonymous No.19951416]

not the best chart IMO

[Anonymous No.19951429]

>>19951378
Tell me more about the Bonnefoy book

[Anonymous No.19951544]

>>19950436

[Anonymous No.19951550]

>>19951429
He's got a very transcendental (in the proper use of that word for ones) view on the late barque developments in Rome. Enough to make me reassess some things i had thought settled. He is good on Caravaggio and Bernini and even refamiliarised me with some minor painters i have otherwise ignored. I read him on a fluke before a stop at Rome, and he had me run around to some, truly obscure galleries to have a look at things i never knew were there. I even scheduled a private viewing at an embassy for the sake of some frescoes.

Good times.

I also just had a look at my shelves and Eleanor Clark's Rome and a villa is still my favorite book on the city. If you are visiting for the first time it's exactly what you want.

[Anonymous No.19951575]

The Discarded Image

[Anonymous No.19951600]

>>19951550
Oh i should add. I dont know if it's the translation or the french academic style, it's not a very casual ( or even pleasant) read. It's knotted sentences that Gibbon would be proud of.

[Anonymous No.19951623]

>>19950436