Bøger om Renæssance

In the vibrant heart of Renaissance Italy, in the late 15th century, a unique and pivotal moment in art history unfolded. Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, found himself captivated by the genius of the era, a man who would later be celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time. He was a genius who walked among men. His name was Leonardo da Vinci, a polymath whose talents knew no bounds. He was a painter, a scientist, an inventor, and an observer of the human condition. Yet, it was in his masterpiece, "The Last Supper," that Leonardo's unique vision transcended the canvas, revealing the essence of the chosen ones.But behind the creation of Leonardo's masterpiece, "The Last Supper," lies a story that has often been overshadowed by the brilliance of the artwork itself. It is a tale of "The Chosen Ones," individuals whose lives would forever be intertwined with the strokes of a genius's brush."The Chosen Ones" invites you on a journey through time and artistry, delving into the world of da Vinci and the enigmatic disciples who surrounded Jesus at that fateful meal. Beyond the strokes of the brush and the pigments on the wall, we explore the depths of human emotion, faith, and destiny as portrayed in the faces and postures of those gathered around the table.In this book, we uncover the secrets behind da Vinci's selection of models for "The Last Supper," from the contemplative visage of Thomas to the serene expression of John the Evangelist. We unravel the mysteries of a painting that encapsulates both the sacred and the earthly, where the Divine meets the human in a timeless representation of faith and betrayal.Leonardo's quest for authenticity in portraying the apostles was meticulous. He roamed the streets of Milan, observing individuals from all walks of life, seeking the perfect faces and postures that would breathe life into his composition. He understood that to capture the essence of the chosen ones, he needed models who could convey the complex range of emotions that must have filled that sacred chamber."The Chosen Ones" is a journey not only into the minds and souls of these apostles but also into the heart of the artist himself. We delve into the life of Leonardo da Vinci, a man of boundless curiosity and relentless pursuit of knowledge. His notebooks, filled with sketches, diagrams, and scientific observations, reveal a mind constantly in motion, questioning the world around him and seeking to uncover the mysteries of existence.The genesis of the chosen ones lies in the hallowed halls of a convent in Milan, Italy. There, in the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria Delle Grazie, Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, to create a mural that would capture the essence of the Christian faith. What emerged from his brilliant mind and nimble hands was a work of art that transcended its religious subject matter to become an enduring symbol of artistic genius and spiritual contemplation.The year was 1482 when Ludovico Sforza, a renowned patron of the arts, decided to summon Leonardo da Vinci to the opulent court of Milan. Ludovico was not just a ruler; he was a connoisseur of art and culture, known for his lavish court and patronage of artists, scientists, and scholars. He had heard whispers of the extraordinary talents possessed by a certain Leonardo da Vinci and was eager to meet this enigmatic genius for himself.

This volume charts alternative courses through history via the physical conditions and artisanal ecologies in which cultural artifacts were created in Europe from roughly 1400 to 1700. Maker Space: Creative Environments in Early Modern Europe asks how spatial considerations initiated, supported, and thwarted creative activities and highlights points of intersection and overlap across practices that we otherwise tend to think of as separate. Scholars have long had an interest in, for instance, the workshop, laboratory, studiolo, or Kunstkammer as distinct places of production-named coordinates that situate social and technical actions in a defined context. The essays in this volume use the less fixed notion of space to break open such typologies, emphasizing the fluid, improvisational, and idiosyncratic aspects of creative work. They demonstrate how the ever-shifting array of tools, materials, environmental conditions, and bodies involved in artisanal production redirects our attention to the shared conditions that unite various enterprises of intellection, imagination, experimentation, and making. The book comprises a series of short case studies and extended meditations on particular sites where the work of the mind and hand coincided, from mines, arsenals, theaters, and imagined hermitages to tailors' shops, artists' workshops, the home, and even the space of a chemist's notebook. This format of short and long essays animates the story of early modern making and thinking practices at various scales. The specifics of these case studies move us away from either totalizing or categorical views that would gloss over the fluid, messy, and insistently material conditions of daily work-that is, the raw material of history. These essays also suggest fundamental shared concerns-from environmental and moral control to the conditions necessary for the mental demands of making-that supersede distinct makers or creative practices.

An original survey of the Renaissance painter's life and work. This book is a concise survey of the life of the Florentine painter Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522) within his social and cultural surroundings. Delving into the artist's deliberately idiosyncratic life, the book shows how di Cosimo chose to live in squalor--eating nothing but boiled eggs cooked fifty at a time in his painting glue. Sarah Blake McHam shows how the artist became a favorite among sophisticated patrons eager for pagan artworks featuring Greco-Roman mythological subjects as well as orthodox, but never ordinary, religious altarpieces and private devotional paintings. The result is a newly accessible introduction to the life of this important Renaissance artist.

C. S. Lewis's language is as entertaining as it is obscure, and Lewis scholar Greg Wright takes us on an equally entertaining tour through some of the choice humdingers that Lewis included in his Chronicles of Narnia.

"Shakespeare / Play asks: what is (a) play? How do Shakespeare's plays engage with, and represent, early modern modes of play - from jests, games, and toys, to music, spectacle, movement, animal-baiting and dance? How do contemporary 'replays' in performance engage with other modes of play? And how does the structure of the plays experienced in the early modern playhouse shape our understanding of the form of a Shakespeare play today? Ranging across Shakespeare's dramatic oeuvre, prose works from the period and contemporary theatre and film, it provides a fascinating study of 'play' with approaches from a host of disciplines"--

Early modern printmakers trained observers to scan the heavens above as well as faces in their midst. Peter Apian printed the Cosmographicus Liber (1524) to teach lay astronomers their place in the cosmos, while also printing practical manuals that translated principles of spherical astronomy into useful data for weather watchers, farmers, and astrologers. Physiognomy, a genre related to cosmography, taught observers how to scrutinize profiles in order to sum up peoples' characters. Neither Albrecht Dürer nor Leonardo escaped the tenacious grasp of such widely circulating manuals called practica. Few have heard of these genres today, but the kinship of their pictorial programs suggests that printers shaped these texts for readers who privileged knowledge retrieval. Cultivated by images to become visual learners, these readers were then taught to hone their skills as observers. This book unpacks these and other visual strategies that aimed to develop both the literate eye of the reader and the sovereignty of images in the early modern world.

Confronting Kabbalah offers a captivating look into the little-known library of Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter. This study paints a vivid picture of a man with a unique perspective on Kabbalah and it explores how Christian Hebraists in the sixteenth century collected Jewish books.

The Last Supper-oft referred to as The Lord's Supper, Communion, or the Eucharist-is one of the sacraments celebrated in Christian churches as a means of communing with Jesus and as a commemoration of His death. But whether or not one is a Christian, when The Last Supper is mentioned, inevitably the iconic painting by Leonardo da Vinci springs to mind. It has become a part of our collective consciousness.Created toward the end of the 15th century, da Vince painted in the mode of the day, so while the beloved masterpiece is most certainly great art, it is not particularly good history. In fact, Leonardo got it all wrong. The question must be asked, was it intentional or did he have an ulterior motive?Conspiracy theorists point to esoteric connections hidden in the picture. Magdalene cults found Mary as one of the desciples. Musical scholars found examples of Pythagorean musical ratios. Numerologists find the painting to be a playground of numerical references. There have been reported connections between da Vinci and secret cults. And of course there is Dan Brown's wildly popular international bestselling novel, The DaVinci Code. Literally thousands of theologians have attempted to explain the Christian symbolism and truth in the picture and to name the disciples as they sit in the picture.Regardless of how beloved or revered the painting was and is, apart from its symbolic representation, it was not a true representation of the real Last Supper.

Lorenzo Ghiberti's unfinished Commentaries is the earliest surviving writing by a great artist about theprinciples and goals of art, about his own art, and about the attributes and means necessary for the artist toproduce excellent art.Part I of this study reevaluates the character and purpose of Ghiberti's book and examines its content, structure and organization, sources, dating, literary quality and style, and its place in the literature ofItalian art. It describes each of the book's three commentaries and shows how they are interrelated andtogether form a coherent whole. It discusses Ghiberti's deliberate selection of the excerpts from Latinancient and medieval texts that comprise most of the first and third commentaries and his selection of theartists and works recorded in the second commentary, and it explores the rationale behind these choices. While all three commentaries contribute to understanding Ghiberti's interests and intent, the secondcommentary is the fulcrum of his book and can be fully appreciated only in the context of his writing as awhole. At the same time, it is important in its own right as a key source of information on late thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Tuscan and Roman painting and sculpture and Ghiberti's art. Unlike the poorlytranslated, defective, and often incomprehensible excerpts in the first and third commentaries, the secondcommentary was written almost entirely in Ghiberti's own words and is easily understood. Part II presents a new transcription and annotated English translation of this primary document for thehistory of early Renaissance art and the history of art criticism.

Included in this indispensable book are some of the most significant documents tracing Freemasonry from its early operative roots to the early collections defining the seeds of Speculative Freemasonry. Included are: "Edict of Rothari"; "The Regius Manuscript"; "The Matthew Cooke Manuscript"; "The Torgau Ordinances"; "The Strasburg Manuscript"; "Watson Manuscript"; "The Schaw Statutes"; "St. Clair Charters"; "Harleian Manuscript"; "Inigo Jones Manuscript"; "Thomas Tew Manuscript"; "Edinburgh Register House Manuscript"; "The Kevan Manuscript"; "Ancient Charges of a Free Mason (1723 & 1738)"; "General Regulations of a Freemason" and "The Graham Manuscript". Also included are the essays: "The Old Charges of Freemasonry" and "Freemasonry And The Comacine Masters" by H.L Haywood. 2013 Revised Edition.

The Last Supper-oft referred to as The Lord's Supper, Communion, or the Eucharist-is one of the sacraments celebrated in Christian churches as a means of communing with Jesus and as a commemoration of His death. But whether or not one is a Christian, when The Last Supper is mentioned, inevitably the iconic painting by Leonardo da Vinci springs to mind. It has become a part of our collective consciousness.Created toward the end of the 15th century, da Vince painted in the mode of the day, so while the beloved masterpiece is most certainly great art, it is not particularly good history. In fact, Leonardo got it all wrong. The question must be asked, was it intentional or did he have an ulterior motive?Conspiracy theorists point to esoteric connections hidden in the picture. Magdalene cults found Mary as one of the desciples. Musical scholars found examples of Pythagorean musical ratios. Numerologists find the painting to be a playground of numerical references. There have been reported connections between da Vinci and secret cults. And of course there is Dan Brown's wildly popular international bestselling novel, The DaVinci Code. Literally thousands of theologians have attempted to explain the Christian symbolism and truth in the picture and to name the disciples as they sit in the picture.Regardless of how beloved or revered the painting was and is, apart from its symbolic representation, it was not a true representation of the real Last Supper.