Customer Reviews

Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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The catalogue for the current show at the Met in NYC, which will later go to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, this is a beautiful and scholarly publication, centered on that most human of passion, love, and the relationship between bride and groom during the Renaissance. Shown here are not only paintings (masterpieces by Lotto, Titian or Lippi), but also numerous artefacts such as glass vessels, plates, vases, books,wedding rings, cassone panels etc, all made to commemorate the childbirths or weddings of the rich (always) and famous (sometimes) of the time. The text, often based on ancient records (inventories of dowries, description of the "negotiations" between the two wedding parties, private letters...)succeeds in setting the works of art in their social and economic context, showing how a wedding in Renaissance Italy was much more than just the outcome of a mere love affair.

High-quality illustrations and a text that tackles a rarely studied sociological aspect of the Renaissance make this book a valuable addition to any arts library.

Having recently co-authored a novel that focuses on art and love in Renaissance Italy, and on the intimate lives of the women who lived in it, I was delighted to see the magnificent catalogue published to accompany the Metropolitan Museum exhibition on Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. Lavishly illustrated with works in a variety of media, from painting to ceramic vessels to wooden birth trays, the catalogue offers proof of the importance of artwork in the daily life of Renaissance society. The well-written and detailed essays discuss the place of imagery in all stages of Renaissance marriage, from courtship, to engagement, to childbirth. Along with the pageantry and celebration that accompanied these events for the well-to-do, came a dazzling array of jewelry, portraits, and costume, as well as specific functional but gorgeously decorated items such as cassone (marriage chests), bowls for washing the newborn, engagement rings for the anellamento, and dishware for new mothers. Drawing on mythology, religious imagery and the specific iconography of Renaissance Italy, the works depicted in the exhibit and painstakingly researched in the catalogue essays offer a window into the intimate lives of the patrons who commissioned and displayed them. For those whose curiosity about the love life and childbirth practices of Renaissance Italy are not fully sated by the exhibit, I strongly recommend The Miracles of Prato (William Morrow), forthcoming this January. The novel features just the kind of objects displayed in the exhibit, and follows the life of Fra Filippo Lippi, whose Portrait of a Woman and Man at a Casement Window is truly one of the highlights of the show.

This is a beautiful and stirring book depicting point by point the current exhibition at the Museum of Art. I have been to the exhibit
and this wonderful volume describes in marvelous detail the subject matter of art and love in Renaissance Italy.

I traveled recently to Italy and explored and researched the masters decribed in this book and it thrills me to be able to own in one volume the pictures and the material associated with this particular theme.

The exhibit is a mindblower and so is this book .