Machtelt Israëls is Researcher in the History of Renaissance and Early Modern Art at the University of Amsterdam.
Admirers of the richness, seductive accents and elusive beauty of
the paintings of Stefano di Giovanni, known as il Sassetta
(1392–1450/51), will be delighted by the extraordinary, indeed
exhaustive depth of this two-volume study devoted to the polyptych
once to be seen on the high altar of the church of S. Francesco in
Borgo San Sepolcro, painted between 1437 and 1444.
*The Burlington Magazine*
Sassetta was the leading painter in Siena in the early fifteenth
century and the altarpiece he made for the Franciscan church in the
town of Borgo San Sepolcro was one of the biggest altarpieces of
the Renaissance, about twenty feet tall and fifteen feet wide. For
the last hundred years, this painting has inspired research on the
character of Sienese art, and it is now the subject of a beautiful
new study in two volumes, Sassetta: The Borgo San Sepolcro
Altarpiece. Everything about the book is impressive, from the
quality of its printing to the number of people involved in its
writing. Led by the brilliant scholar Machtelt Israëls, more than
forty experts contributed to the book; and at 636 pages and 435
color illustrations, it is one of the most comprehensive monographs
ever written on a single work of Renaissance painting.
*New York Review of Books*
Monumental, immaculately produced volumes...They represent arguably
the most exhaustive study of a single altarpiece ever undertaken,
and are...both a supreme triumph and a spectacular demonstration of
the value of collaborative and interdisciplinary research...In
spite of the fact that we already know so much about the altarpiece
and its commission, the various authors of this book most
definitely do not agree on everything--for all the exquisite good
manners on display, the knives are unmistakeably out. Of course,
this is as it should be, but is also refreshingly unusual in a
world where spineless agreement is all too often the order of the
day. What makes the killer footnotes so entertaining here is the
way contributors refer to the conflicting arguments of other
scholars within these pages precisely in order to explain that they
have not been persuaded by them to change their minds...The
editorial and literary standards of a publication which necessarily
involved a number of contributors whose first language is not
English are remarkably high.
*Apollo*
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