Renaissance
The time has come for one of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic Renaissance artists
Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits — nervous, intense and enigmatic — are among the most memorable to be painted in 16th-century Italy,…
The advantages of turning down the colour knob: Monochrome reviewed
Leonardo da Vinci thought sculpting a messy business. The sculptor, he pointed out, has to bang away with a hammer,…
The journey of Adam and Eve
Trying to reconcile a belief in the literal truth of the Bible with the facts of the world as we…
Silent films
On 15 September 1888 Vincent van Gogh was intrigued to read an account of an up-to-date artist’s house in the…
Shakespeare’s crowning glory
In the 18th century, as Shakespeare began to take on classic status, editors began to notice differences between the texts…
Florence
Once, it seems, Sandro Botticelli played a trick on a neighbour. Next door was a weaver who possessed eight looms.…
Topsy-turvy
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
On the trail of Piero
Piero della Francesca is today acknowledged as one of the foundational artists of the Renaissance. Aldous Huxley thought his ‘Resurrection’…
Whodunnit?
Question-marks over attribution are at the heart of a forthcoming Giorgione exhibition. Martin Gayford sifts through the evidence
Away with the angels?
John Dee liked to talk to spirits but he was no loony witch, says Christopher Howse
Lime light
In April 1501, about the time Michelangelo was returning from Rome to Florence to compete for the commission to carve…
Maths and masterpieces
The Indian inspiration with which Piero della Francesca created ‘the greatest picture in the world’
Florence Notebook
Florence was in fog the day I arrived. Its buildings were bathed in white cloud, its people moved as though…
Aesthete and huckster
Sam Leith suspects that even such a distinguished connoisseur as Bernard Berenson did not always play a straight bat
A Herculean achievement
Early on in this dazzling new biography, Martin Gayford compares Michelangelo, with his daunting artistic tasks, to Hercules, the subject…
Was Machiavelli a Machiavellian?
One more anniversary, one more cache of commemorative books. This time we are celebrating the half-millennium since Niccolò Machiavelli produced…
