The Brancacci Chapel; form, function, and setting

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2008

The Brancacci Chapel; form, function, and setting.

Ed. by Nicholas A. Eckstein.

Leo S. Olschki Publishing

2007

237 pages

$60.00

Hardcover

Villa I Tatti / the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies; 22

ND2757

The Brancacci Chapel in Florence is well known for the beautiful frescos completed in the 1480s by Fra Fillippino Lippi. However these papers, delivered at a conference held in Florence in June of 2003, focus on aspects of the chapel less often studied. Eckstein (Italian history, University of Sidney, Australia) deliberately asked the contributors, half historians and half art historians, to look at the earlier art in the chapel, beginning with a panel of the Virgin from the late thirteenth century. The result is a comprehensive overview of the art of the chapel in the context of the local community, the Carmelite order, patronage, and trends in art of the time. Eckstein believes that art is better understood in its historical context and that history is better understood through art. Six color plates and several in black and white enhance the articles. While this book is number twenty-two in the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies series, the book is published in Florence and does not have a US distributor.

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