Confirmation of the Rule of the Franciscan Order, detail

The Washington bust of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492) (figs. 1, 5), depicting the private citizen who dominated Florence in the late fifteenth century, was a remarkably influential work ...

Giannozzo di Antonio Pucci married Lucrezia di Piero di Giovanni di Jacopo Bini in 1483. Four panels based on a tale from Boccaccio’s Decameron can be connected with this marriage (pls. 213-16). From Sandro Botticelli’s workshop, the paintings measure about 83 by 140 cm. each, or 1 1/2 by 2 1/2 Florentine braccia. Their size and format suggests that they were designed to be the type of decorative inset known as spalliere, placed above shoulder (spalla) height in the wainscoting of a panelled …

THE HISTORIANS whose writings were examined in the previous chapters—Riegl and Wölfflin—were explicitly concerned with the construction of critical systems. This chapter is about two historians who were not. Anton Springer and Aby Warburg represent a continuation of the tradition of Rumohr, both in their concern with philological detail and their integration of the study of art within the complexities of social life. …