The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome [Hardcover]

Ingrid D. Rowland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 1998

Between 1480 and 1520, a concentration of talented artists, including Melozzo da Forlì, Bramante, Pinturicchio, Raphael, and Michelangelo, arrived in Rome and produced some of the most enduring works of art ever created. This period, now called the High Renaissance, is generally considered to be one of the high points of Western civilisation. How did it come about, and what were the forces that converged to spark such an explosion of creative activity? In this study, Ingrid Rowland examines the culture, society, and intellectual norms that generated the High Renaissance. This interdisciplinary 2001 study assesses the intellectual paradigm shift that occurred at the turn of the fifteenth century. It also finds and explains the connections between ideas, people, and the art works they created by looking at economics, art, contemporary understanding of classical antiquity, and social conventions.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'[Rowland] brings this lost world back to the three-dimensional life and vivid color ... a splendid writer whose words evoke unforgettable images of Renaissance society ...' The New York Review of Books

'... splendid monograph from which every student of Renaissance Rome will profit immensely.' Latomus

Book Description

This 2001 study examines the culture, society, and intellectual norms that generated the High Renaissance. Fuelled by a volatile mix of economic development, longing for ancient civilisation, and religious ferment, the High Renaissance, Rowland posits, was a period in which artists sought 'new methods for doing new things'.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 446 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (November 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521581451
• ISBN-13: 978-0521581455
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,548,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely superb, March 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Hardcover)

It is nearly impossible to overpraise Ingrid Rowland's book. Strikingly original, _The Culture of the High Renaissance_ is a dazzling display of scholarship and one of the finest examples of historical writing in recent memory. There is exceptional erudition here--her work is a feast of information, rare insight, and compelling interpretation--and it is presented by Rowland from beginning to end with enthusiasm and considerable grace. Refreshingly, she always gives the sense of inviting the reader along to share in the discovery of a world she knows so well, and so clearly loves. The writing itself is something extraordinary. Here the fascinating world of sixteenth century Rome is presented with passion, affection, and humor--a more than welcome antidote to the bloodless prose of much current academic writing. This should come as no surprise to readers familiar with Rowland's pieces in _The New York Review of Books_ (her current article, "Titian: The Sacred and Profane" is characteristically dazzling and not to be missed). It is easy to see why Rowland was recently recognized for her outstanding teaching at the University of Chicago. Lucky students...lucky readers. Prof. George Lechner, Italian Renaissance (Honors), University of Hartford

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passionate, learned, sexy, urbane and fascinating, March 1, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Hardcover)

From a review by Anthony Grafton in The New York Review of Books, March 4, 1999 (Vol. XLVI, No. 4), pp. 34-38. "Like Burckhardt, Ingrid Rowland sees the Renaissance as the birth of a new culture and society. Like Burckhardt, too, she brings this lost world back to three-dimensional life and vivid color, for, like him, she too is a splendid writer whose words evoke unforgettable images of Renaissance society. Rowland deftly describes the young artists and warriors we know from Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography, every ready to fight or fornicate. . . . More remarkably, Rowland does as much for the city's old scholars." "Though Rowland peoples her story with memorable characters, she also re-creates the institutions in which they had to make their way." "Especially effective-and particularly fascinating-are Rowland's recreations of particular Roman circles and their ways of making scholarship into art." "Rowland's remarkable enterprise in cultural history synthesizes earlier scholarship of many kinds: that of urban historian like David Coffin, Christopher Frömmel, and Charles Burroughs; of intellectual historians like John D'Amico and Charles Stinger; of historians of the classical revival in art and architecture like Otto Kurz, Elisabeth MacDougall, and Phyllis Pray Bober; of passionate delvers into Vatican manuscripts like Vittorio Fanelli and Massimo Miglio. But this book really rests more on primary than on secondary sources. . . . Her view of Roman intellectual life, her sense of personal interactions and intellectual collisions, derive directly form the cornucopia of documents she has discovered, evaluated, and edited." "Painters and writers, life as art, style as mediations, banquet years: Ingrid Rowland, like a contemporary Burckhardt, brings a lost world to life. She has given us a genuinely metropolitan High Renaissance, not only passionate and learned, but also sexy, urbane, and fascinating."