Raphael was the preeminent painter of Renaissance Rome, whose classical style marks some of the most enduring masterpieces of Italian Renaissance art. Of these, the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace has often been considered the most aesthetically perfect. Executed between 1508 and 1511 for the notoriously temperamental, but adventurous, patron of the arts, Pope Julius II, it was the commission that propelled Raphael, then a young man, into international prominence. The work consists of a chamber with a painted ceiling, a pavement of inlaid marble, and four frescoed walls, all orchestrated with a cast of famous historical figures who exemplify the various disciplines of learning. Joost-Gaugier's study is the first to examine the elements of the Stanza della Segnatura as an ensemble. The volume focuses on the meaning of the frescoes and accompanying decoration in light of recent studies into the intellectual world of High Renaissance Rome.
Surviving fragments of information about Pythagoras (born ca. 570 BCE) gave rise to a growing set of legends about this famous sage and his followers, whose reputations throughout Antiquity and the Mi
Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier offers the first systematic study of Pythagoras and his influence on mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, religion, medicine, music, the occult, and social life - as well as on architecture and art - in the late medieval and early modern eras. Following the threads of admiration for this ancient Greek sage from the fourteenth century to Kepler and Galileo in the seventeenth, this book demonstrates that Pythagoras's influence in intellectual circles - Christian, Jewish, and Arab - was more widespread than has previously been acknowledged. Joost-Gaugier shows how this admiration was reflected in ideas that were applied to the visual arts by a number of well known architects and artists who sought, through the use of a visual language inspired by the memory of Pythagoras, to obtain perfect harmony in their creations. Among these were Alberti, Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier offers the first systematic study of Pythagoras and his influence on mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, religion, medicine, music, the occult, and social life - as well as on architecture and art - in the late medieval and early modern eras. Following the threads of admiration for this ancient Greek sage from the fourteenth century to Kepler and Galileo in the seventeenth, this book demonstrates that Pythagoras's influence in intellectual circles - Christian, Jewish, and Arab - was more widespread than has previously been acknowledged. Joost-Gaugier shows how this admiration was reflected in ideas that were applied to the visual arts by a number of well known architects and artists who sought, through the use of a visual language inspired by the memory of Pythagoras, to obtain perfect harmony in their creations. Among these were Alberti, Bramante, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael.
Surviving fragments of information about Pythagoras (born ca. 570 BCE) gave rise to a growing set of legends about this famous sage and his followers, whose reputations throughout Antiquity and the Mi