Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae

Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae

Author: Maryl B. Gensheimer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-02

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 019061479X

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Across the Roman Empire, ubiquitous archaeological, art historical, and literary evidence attests to the significance of bathing for Romans' routines and relationships. Public baths were popularly viewed as necessities of daily life and important social venues. Given the importance of bathing to the Roman style of living, by endowing eight magnificent baths (the so-called imperial thermae) in the city of Rome between 25 BCE - 315 CE, imperial patrons greatly enhanced their popular and political stature. Decoration and Display in Rome's Imperial Thermae presents a detailed analysis of the extensive decoration of the best preserved of these bathing complexes, the Baths of Caracalla (inaugurated 216 CE). Maryl B. Gensheimer takes an interdisciplinary approach to existing archaeological data, textual and visual sources, and anthropological theories in order to generate a new understanding of the visual experience of the Baths of Caracalla and show how the decoration played a critical role in advancing imperial agendas. This reassessment of one of the most ambitious and sophisticated examples of large-scale architectural patronage in Classical antiquity examines the specific mechanisms through which an imperial patron could use architectural decoration to emphasize his own unique sociopolitical position relative to the thousands of people who enjoyed his benefaction. The case studies addressed herein--ranging from architectural to freestanding sculpture and mosaic--demonstrate that sponsoring monumental baths was hardly an act of altruism. Rather, even while they provided recreation for elite and sub-altern Romans alike, such buildings were concerned primarily with dynastic legitimacy and imperial largess. Decorative programs articulated these themes by consistently drawing analogies between the subjects of the decoration and the emperor who had paid for it. The unified decorative program--and the messages of imperial power therein--adroitly honored the emperor and consolidated his reputation.


Art Books

Art Books

Author: Wolfgang M. Freitag

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-28

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 1134830416

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First published in 1997. For this second edition of Art Books: A Basic Bibliography of Monographs on Artists, the vast number of new books published since 1985 was surveyed and evaluated. This has resulted in the selection of 3,395 additional titles. These selections, reflective of the increase in the monographic literature on artists during the last ten years, are evidence of the activities of a larger number of art historians in more countries worldwide, of the increasingly diverse and ambitious exhibition programs of museums whose number has also increased dramatically, and also of a lively international art market and the attendant gallery activities. The selections of the first edition have been reviewed, errors have been corrected and important new editions and reprints have been noted. The second edition contains 278 names of artists not represented in the first edition.


Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Martini's Drawings

Ars et Ingenium: The Embodiment of Imagination in Francesco di Giorgio Martini's Drawings

Author: Pari Riahi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-02-11

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1317755995

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When did drawing become an integral part of architecture? Among several architects and artists who brought about this change during the Renaissance, Francesco di Giorgio Martini’s ideas on drawing recorded in his Trattati di architettura, ingegneria e arte militare (1475-1490) are significant. Francesco suggests that drawing is linked to the architect’s imagination and central in conveying images and ideas to others. Starting with the broader edges of Francesco’s written work and steadily penetrating into the fantastic world of his drawings, the book examines his singular formulation of the act of drawing and its significance in the context of the Renaissance. The book concludes with speculations on how Francesco’s work is relevant to us at the onset of another major shift in architecture caused by the proliferation of digital media.


Paper Palaces

Paper Palaces

Author: Vaughan Hart

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9780300075304

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A collection of essays examining early editions of Vitruvius' writings and all the major Renaissance architectural treatises by authors such as Alberti, Di Giorgio, Colonna, Serlio, and Palladio. The authors look at the significance of the treaty in the Renaissance, and trace its decline in the late 17th century.


Francesco Di Giorgio

Francesco Di Giorgio

Author: Gustina Scaglia

Publisher:

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13:

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This work presents Di Giorgio's codex of machine and fort drawings for the Duke of Urbino, his sketchbook of machines, and archeological sketches in the Uffizi. Illustrated.


Renaissance Papers 2017

Renaissance Papers 2017

Author: Jim Pearce

Publisher: Camden House

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1640140182

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This year's volume offers many contributions on early modern drama alongside essays probing identity, iconography, and devotional imagery in religious spaces and artworks. Renaissance Papers collects the best scholarly essays submitted each year to the Southeastern Renaissance Conference. The 2017 volume opens with a trio of essays probing identity, iconography, and devotional imagery in connection with the sacred spaces of St. Paul's Cathedral and of the Bichi Chapel frescoes in the Church of St. Agostino in Siena, as well as with Francisco de Zurburán's Crucifixion with a Painter. The majority of the volume'sessays concern early modern drama: botany and the body in Titus Andronicus; Ovidian sleep in Romeo and Juliet, The Winter's Tale, and Othello; chivalry in Richard II and 1 Henry IV; transhumanist discourse in Othello; obedience and devils in Dr. Faustus, and domesticity and commerce in A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. The focus then shifts to the non-dramatic with reconsiderations of the intertextualities in Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece and the paratextualities in Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. The final essay, on the Faerie Queene, explores the intended and unintended literary consequences of pairing humor with death. Contributors: Jasmin W. Cyril, Lisandra Estevez, Tony Perrello, Emily Johnson Roberts, Rachel M. De Smith Roberts, Deneen M. Sensai, Margaret Simon, Elisha Sircy, Susan C. Staub, Frances Teague, John N.Wall, Lewis Walker. The journal is edited by Jim Pearce of North Carolina Central University and Ward J. Risvold of the University of California, San Diego.


Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology

Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology

Author: Nancy Thomson de Grummond

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-05-11

Total Pages: 1579

ISBN-13: 1134268610

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With 1,125 entries and 170 contributors, this is the first encyclopedia on the history of classical archaeology. It focuses on Greek and Roman material, but also covers the prehistoric and semi-historical cultures of the Bronze Age Aegean, the Etruscans, and manifestations of Greek and Roman culture in Europe and Asia Minor. The Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology includes entries on individuals whose activities influenced the knowledge of sites and monuments in their own time; articles on famous monuments and sites as seen, changed, and interpreted through time; and entries on major works of art excavated from the Renaissance to the present day as well as works known in the Middle Ages. As the definitive source on a comparatively new discipline - the history of archaeology - these finely illustrated volumes will be useful to students and scholars in archaeology, the classics, history, topography, and art and architectural history.


Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome

Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome

Author: Cammy Brothers

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-01-25

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0691226520

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An illuminating reassessment of the architect whose innovative drawings of ruins shaped the enduring image of ancient Rome Giuliano da Sangallo (1443–1516) was one of the first architects to draw the ruins and artifacts of ancient Rome in a systematic way. Cammy Brothers shows how Giuliano played a crucial role in the Renaissance recovery of antiquity, and how his work transformed the broken fragments of Rome's past into the image of a city made whole. Drawing new insights from the Codex Barberini and the Taccuino Senese—two exquisite collections of Giuliano's drawings on parchment—Brothers reveals how the Florentine architect devoted enormous energy to the representation of ruins, and how his studies of Rome formed an integral part of his work as a designer. She argues that Giuliano's inventive approach, which has often been mischaracterized as fantastical or naive, infused the architect's craft with the sensibilities of a poet and painter. Brothers demonstrates how his drawings form the basis for a reevaluation of the meaning and method of the Renaissance study of ancient artifacts, and brings to life the transformative moment when artists and architects began to view the fragments of ancient Rome not as broken artifacts of little interest but as objects of aesthetic contemplation. Featuring a wealth of Giuliano's magnificent drawings, this compelling book provides an incomparable lens through which to explore essential questions about the aesthetic value, significance, and the uses of the past for today's architects.