Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vi

Preface xi

Frontispiece: Map of places mentioned xiii

Introduction: The Italian Renaissance as an Idea Rather Than a Period 1

1 What a Difference a Hundred Years Makes 8

2 How It All Started: Florence and Umbria 31

3 What Happened Next in Florence 68

4 Searching for the Renaissance (1): Siena and Southward to Sicily 92

5 Searching for the Renaissance (2): From Northern Italy Back to Umbria 118

6 The Triumph of the Intellectual Avant-Garde: The High Renaissance 152

7 Some Other Artists of the High Renaissance 184

8 The Swan Song of Renaissance Art 200

9 The Break and the New Avant-Garde: Early Mannerism 209

10 What Was the Italian Renaissance? Conclusions in the Bigger Picture 246

Appendix A: Artists Mentioned 258

Appendix B: Some Suggested Readings 262

Index 267

About the Author

Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier is a three-time graduate ofHarvard University (AB, AM, PhD) and an internationally known arthistorian. She has taught and lectured in numerous Americanuniversities and chaired departments at the University of NewMexico and Wayne State University. Professor Joost-Gaugierhas written extensively on Italian art and architecture and hasauthored more than 200 publications, including six books. Herwork has been supported by numerous research grants and publishedin international journals, exhibition catalogues, and conferenceproceedings. In 2005 she was awarded an honorary Phi BetaKappa for Lifetime Achievement by Harvard University.

Reviews

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-divisionundergraduates, graduate students, andresearchers/faculty. ( Choice , 1 November2013) I highly recommend the very important and fascinatingbook ItalianRenaissance Art: Understanding its Meaning by Christiane L.Joost-Gaugier, to any historians, art critics, art history andRenaissance history students and academics, and to anyone seeking adeeper understanding of the real meaning and currents that werepresent in Renaissance Italy. This book will transform how you viewthe art and the artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries inItaly, and guide you toward thinking of the Renaissance as animportant idea and not as a time period. ( MoneyTalks , 13 April 2013)