Acknowledgements

Lubbock, Jules

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Acknowledgements

Jules Lubbock

Storytelling in Christian Art from Giotto to Donatello

~Books are collaborative. Michael Podro and Margaret Iversen have given advice, criticism, encouragement and inspiration throughout, as well as reading much of the book in draft. Michael Baxandall first guided me to think about the relief sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello. Julian Gardner directed my initial study of pictorial...

Author

Jules Lubbock

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20533

Acknowledgements

Books are collaborative. Michael Podro and Margaret Iversen have given advice, criticism, encouragement and inspiration throughout, as well as reading much of the book in draft. Michael Baxandall first guided me to think about the relief sculpture of Ghiberti and Donatello. Julian Gardner directed my initial study of pictorial narrative and the late John Shearman did his best to teach me the basic principles of historical method, which I hope I have come to value more than I did in the late 1960s. I have been most fortunate to be a member of the splendidly collegial Department of Art History and Theory at the University of Essex; colleagues have read drafts of chapters and given critical attention to my arguments. I owe a particular debt to Val Fraser for her invaluable support in the early stages, to Thomas Puttfarken, Peter Vergo, Deborah Povey, John Nash, Lisa Wade, Simon Richards, Caspar Pearson as well as to Jonathan White and Kay Stevenson of the Department of Literature. My colleagues in RATS (Renaissance Architecture and Theory Scholars) subjected my views on the invention of perspective to their customarily stringent criticism, and I am also grateful to Richard Williams of the University of Edinburgh and to Michael Ann Holly, Director of the Fellowship Program at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass. for inviting me to give papers on that subject. Paul Hills invited me to lecture at the University of Warwick on the subject of ‘Visible Speech’. Chris Thompson, Eric Fernie, Joanna Cannon, Laura Jacobus, David Bindman, Francis Ames-Lewis, James Hall, Diana Norman and Libby Armstrong have generously responded to my queries and requests. Jeffrey Judelson and Sandy Sullivan provided encouragement. Many students over the years have contributed in the process of teaching, listening, looking, finding flaws and coming up with their own ideas, particularly during the department’s annual fortnight study visit to Florence. I hope it is not invidious to single out Jessica Rutherford, Neil McKenna, Amy Schwartz, Odette Livingstone-Smith and Michael Wiersing who kept e-mailing me on his travels round the world asking when the book would be published.

One of the most important and pleasurable aspects of the project was the photographic campaign, funded by the University of Essex Research Promotion Fund and the British Academy. Geoff Crossick, Tim Benton and Paul Hills enthusiastically supported me in obtaining that funding. Barry Woodcock made prints from my first negatives of the Giovanni Pisano pulpits and Ghiberti’s Baptistery doors and worked on the diagrams. I greatly enjoyed working with Antonio Quattrone, a true maestro, from whom I commissioned photographs of the Donatello Head of St John and of the Scrovegni Chapel. Valentina Bandelloni of Scala was especially helpful. Jennifer Iles typed the first draft with her customary skill and drafted the diagrams. The book could not have been written without the staff and resources of the Library of the Warburg Institute; I am also indebted to the British Library, the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex, the London Library, the National Art Library and to the staff of the Library of the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown who worked tirelessly to find books and articles during the summer Fellowship Program of 2005. The University of Essex’s generous allocation of study leave assisted by the British Academy’s study leave programme provided uninterrupted time for research and writing.

This book was incubated at Yale University Press, first by John Nicoll and then when he retired Gillian Malpass adopted it with her customary enthusiasm. Kevin Brown, Sarah Faulks and Emily Angus all made important contributions. The criticisms of two anonymous readers were invaluable. Laura Bolick designed the book and guided it through the press with great skill, no easy task where the relationship between word and image is so intricate.

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