Review
"This splendid book provides a much-needed survey of late Renaissance Italian poetic practice...It situates Bronzino's work in a rich social and cultural context and ... offers an illuminating commentary on the interaction of the visual and literary arts at a particularly fertile period of their early modern development. The book makes a superb contribution to Renaissance studies, to Italian literary history, and to comparative scholarship on the interaction of the arts....Its scholarly apparatus provides a complete and exemplary guide for those who wish to delve deeper into the topic. Finally, Parker's book offers brisk and sprightly translations of texts largely unavailable in modern editions." Forum Italicum
"[a] ground-breaking study." The Art Newspaper
"[Parker] has produced an eminently readable and much-welcomed volume that is meticulously researched, and that contains some beautifully translated passages of Bronzino's poetry. It will undoubtedly be of great value to anyone working on the interaction between literature and fine art in the early modern period, as well as to specialists with a particular interest in 'this most canny, self-conscious, and allusive of artist-poets." Annali d'Italianistica
"Parker's informative and clearly written book is...to be all the more welcomed not only by students of Italian literature but also by art historians and others who are interested in the complex relations between poetry and painting." Virginia Quarterly Review
"Parker's contribution certainly advances our understanding of Bronzino as a poet and as a painter. It proposes an interpretive model based on the artist's complex and contradictory personality and attuned to the diversity
inherent in the cultural world of mid-sixteenth century Florence. After reading Parker's book it will be difficult to look at a Bronzino portrait again and not see the poet-artist smiling at the viewer from behind the canvas." Quaderni d'Italianistica
"Parker has driven an informative wedge into an intricate topic. May it continue to be widened." CAA Reviews
Book Description
Bronzino's stature as one of the great painters of the Florentine Renaissance has long been recognized. By contrast, his literary achievements as a poet have been neglected. This is the first modern study to focus on the poetry of Bronzino. Seeking to clarify the meaning of Bronzino's poems, Deborah Parker argues that they are considerable literary achievements. Importantly, she demonstrates that our understanding of Bronzino's paintings is incomplete without careful attention to his poetry.
