Painting the Palace: Studies in the History of Medieval Secular Painting

Book Description

These eight papers by Professor Martindale represent his major studies on the history of secular painting in medieval and early Renaissance Italy. Written over fifteen years, they focus attention on the evidence for secular decoration in this period. Covering Venice, Siena, and Mantegna’s work in Mantua, this represents an important and often neglected aspect of early Italian art.

Contents

• Preface
• Painting for Pleasure: Some Lost Fifteenth-century Secular Decorations of Northern Italy
• The Problem of Guidoriccio
• Heroes, Ancestors, Relatives and the Birth of the Portrait
• Simone Martini and the Problem of Retirement
• “There is neither Speech nor Language but their Voices are heard among them”. The Enigma of Discourse concerning Art and Artists in the 12th and 13th Centuries
• Mantegna’s camera picta as Wall Decoration
• Venice and Alexander III – Two Painted Impostures?
• The Venetian Sala del Gran Consiglio and its Fourteenth-century Decoration
• Additional Notes
• Index