• The best books on The Renaissance - Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy by Michael Baxandall
  • The best books on The Renaissance - Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
  • The best books on The Renaissance - Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance by Lisa Jardine
  • The best books on The Renaissance - The Printing Press as an Agent of Change by Elizabeth L Eisenstein
  • The best books on The Renaissance - The Reformation by Diarmaid MacCulloch

The best books on The Renaissance, recommended by Jerry Brotton

A century-and-a-half ago the Swiss art historian, Jacob Burckhardt, popularized the idea of a ‘Renaissance’ in 14th century Italy. For most people, the term still conjures up works of art by the likes of Michelangelo or Leonardo. But there is much, much more to it than that. Professor of Renaissance studies, Jerry Brotton, picks the best books to read for a more complete understanding of the Renaissance.

  • The best books on The Lives of Artists - The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art by Joseph Leo Koerner
  • The best books on The Lives of Artists - The Self-Aware Image: An Insight Into Early Modern Meta-Painting by Victor Stoichita
  • The best books on The Lives of Artists - On Photography by Susan Sontag
  • The best books on The Lives of Artists - Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes
  • The best books on The Lives of Artists - Just Kids by Patti Smith

The best books on The Lives of Artists, recommended by Maria Loh

We live in an age obsessed with self-image. Technology has made the ‘selfie’ a ubiquitous form of social currency. Renaissance means may have been very different, but celebrity artists in Medici Florence dealt with many of the issues relating to identity and authorship that we grapple with today. Maria Loh, author of Still Lives: Death, Desire, and the Portrait of the Old Master, talks to Five Books about the curated self.