Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- List of Illustrations -- Introduction -- The Sponge of Protogenes -- Not Quite the Liberal Artist -- The Divine Poet, Twinned -- Idioti or Angels -- Listening for the Music of the Spheres -- The Artist as Huomo Famosissimo -- Epilogue: The Romantic Deluge -- Appendix: The Historiography of Ingegno -- Appendix: Fornari's Gloss on Ariosto's Canto XXXIII -- Illustrations -- Bibliography -- Index -- CULTURES, BELIEFS AND TRADITIONS
Summary
Turning a skeptical eye on the idea that Renaissance artists were widely believed to be as utterly admirable as Vasari claimed, this book re-opens the question of why artists were praised and by whom, and specifically why the language of divinity was invoked, a practice the ancients did not license. The epithet ''divino'' is examined in the context of claims to liberal arts status and to analogy with poets, musicians, and other ''uomini famossi.'' The reputations of Michelangelo and Brunelleschi are compared not only with each other but with those of Dante and Ariosto, of Aretino and of t.
