Andrea Mantegna

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Etgraphiae - Cartograf

Marco Musillo
Getty Publications

During Qing dynasty China, Italian artists were hired through Jesuit missionaries by the imperial workshops in Beijing. In The Shining Inheritance: Italian Painters at the Qing Court, 1699–1812, Marco Musillo considers the professional adaptations and pictorial modifications to Chinese traditions that allowed three of these Italian painters — Giovanni Gherardini (1655– ca. 1729), Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), and Giuseppe Panzi (1734–1812) — to work within the Chinese cultural sphere from 1699, when Gherardini arrived in China, to 1812, the year of Panzi's death. Musillo focuses especially on the long career and influence of Castiglione (whose Chinese name was Lang Shining), who worked in Beijing for more than fifty years. Serving three Qing emperors, he was actively engaged in the pictorial discussions at court.

The Shining Inheritance perceptively explores how each painter's level of professional artistic training affected his understanding, selection, and translation of the Chinese pictorial traditions. Musillo further demonstrates how this East-West artistic exchange challenged the dogma of European universality through a professional dialogue that became part of established workshop routines. The cultural elements, procedures, and artistic languages of both China and Italy were strategically played against each other in negotiating the successes and failures of the Italian painters in Beijing. Musillo's subtle analysis offers a compelling methodological model for an increasingly global field of art history. 

Carlo Marcora
Edizioni Paolo Cattaneo

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Edizioni Olivares

Anna Ottani Cavina, Emilia Calbi
Mondadori Electa

Carlo Bertelli
Banca Agricola Milanese

Nicole Dacos
Libreria Editrice Vaticana - Jaca Book

La bottega di Raffaello fu la più notevole e complessa impresa artistica di tutto il Cinquecento. Le Logge rappresentano uno degli esiti più alti del genio artistico e organizzativo di Raffaello, certamente il più fortunato per l'immensa eco, a Roma e nel mondo, dal Rinascimento sino al XX secolo, che questo luogo seppe creare. Ciò avvenne in due modi molto differenti che infatti ebbero diversissimi ma egualmente importanti sviluppi. Le cosiddette grottesche, anzitutto, divennero il paradigma imitatissimo dell'omaggio all'Antico: Raffaello era infatti partito dalle decorazioni trovate nelle "grotte" della Domus Aurea, allora di recente scoperta, reinventandole e creando un nuovo modello estetico che si sarebbe diffuso in tutte le ville signorili italiane e poi europee, sino alla replica esatta dell'Hermitage di San Pietroburgo e alla citazione del Campidoglio a Washington. Le Logge si trovano sul lato del Palazzo Apostolico di fronte al cortile di San Damaso e la Piazza di San Pietro: il richiamo all'Antico e alla sua grandezza non poteva trovare una collocazione più significativa. In secondo luogo, il soffitto delle Logge è composto da 15 vorticelle in cui gli artisti di Raffaello hanno magistralmente illustrato scene della Bibbia destinate a divenire modello, diffuso attraverso le incisioni, delle rappresentazioni bibliche offerte ai semplici, ai "poveri", cioè agli illetterati.

Olga Nefedova
Skira Editore

"Orientalist painter Jean- Baptiste Vanmour may be the subject of the book, but its value lies in the context Olga Nefedova builds around him. Her point about Vanmour is straightforward: this Flemish artist, who worked for French and other ambassadorial missions in Istanbul, set the tone for how subsequent European painters portrayed Turkey. To drive this point home, she provides an extensively illustrated survey of European representations of “the Orient,” from European Renaissance paintings to contemporary works. She also surveys the subgenre of works by artists attached to European diplomatic missions in Turkey. As a result, she brings nuance to “Orientalist painting,” a category that has too often been seen solely through the lens of colonial-power dynamics at the expense of recognizing the individuality of creative expression." -- Review from AramcoWorld.

Pietro Zampetti
Cassa di Risparmio di Fermo

Luigi Giuseppe Conato
Fausto Sardini Editore

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Edizioni Olivares

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Edizioni Bolis