Customer Reviews

Bellini's Feast of the Gods: A Study in Venetian Humanism

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This first part is not a review, but a comment. The product description for this listing has nothing to do with this edition of the book. It is simply an inappropriate advertisement for a Reprint Publisher who has done this on thousands of listings - an very annoying practice. Unfortunately, Amazon offers no option for offering revisions of product listings, so I thought I'd use this space to comment on that before my review.

The book itself (1948 Harvard University Press edition) is very useful as an art reference and has wonderful black and white collotype reproductions of details from the painting and related material. It is also a fascinating read. Wind is a brilliant critic and his vast knowledge of the Italian Renaissance greatly informs this work. In the mid 20th century, Wind's interpretation of several aspects of this work by Bellini was considered almost radical. He cites the correspondence between Bellini and Pietro Bembo as one source of inspiration for the painting and puts forth the notion of a facetious aspect in the Renaissance revical of pagan themes.