Florence (Art & Architecture)
by Silvestra Bietoletti, Carlo Cresti, Antonio Paolucci
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Book Summary Information
Author: Antonio Paolucci, Carlo Cresti, Silvestra BietolettiEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-05-01
ISBN: 3833119896
Number of pages: 528
Publisher: Konemann
Book Reviews of Florence (Art & Architecture)
Book Review: Great illustrations, so-so text
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is worth its price for the superb illustrations. It has high-quality color illustrations of the most important Renaissance art, sculpture, and architecture, in Florence. They are a joy to look at and well selected. Of course, everything is not here--there is just too much fine art in this one city, so many masterpieces cannot be included. But it's a fine selection.
The illustrations rate 5 stars. But the text rates only two to three. Various chapters are written by nine different Florentine art-historians. Some are tedious to read--they discuss in excessive detail, and with appallingly long sentences, who did or did not paint/sculpt/build a particular piece; whether or not that piece is or is not one of the greatest; and (most importantly to some of the writers, it seems) whether or not other art-historians are right or wrong in their attributions/criticisms of the piece. In other words, material of interest only to other art historians, with very little on the beauty of the pieces, why they are inspiring, and on how they were made. However, several of the later chapters are well written and interesting.
Annoyingly, the text refers to artworks without saying whether or where they are illustrated in the book. There are no cross-references. I wasted a lot of time going back and forth in the (very good) index to seek illustrations. Some turned out to be in the chapter I was reading, some were in the first introductory chapter, some were in both, and some were not illustrated at all. Zero stars here.
The time period covered is from Medieval to modern, but the bulk of its coverage is on the periods of the antecedents to the Renaissance and the Renaissance itself--exactly the period of most interest.
The book comes in large hardback (12.5 x 10.9 inch, '19896 ISBN) and slightly smaller (10 x 8.5 inch, '34096 ISBN) formats. Both are identical in pagination--text and illustrations are simply enlarged in the bigger version.
$40 for the larger hardback is an excellent deal. The prices on Amazon for the softback are wild as I write this--$131 used. It should less than $30 new (it's 20 euros in Europe).
The illustrations alone are worth the price.
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