Officina Libraria – serie

Raphael arrived in Rome in 1508 and remained there until his death in 1520, working as painter and architect for popes Julius II and Leo X and for the most prestigious patrons. Here the artist changed his painting style several times, looking at the works of Michelangelo, Sebastiano del Piombo and the vast repertoire of ancient painting and sculpture. In the Eternal City Raphael practised architecture for the first time, designing buildings that reflected the models of Antiquity such as the Pantheon, the descriptions deriving from written sources such as Vitruvius' treaty on architecture, and the examples of modern architects like Donato Bramante.This guide supplies essential and up to date information on all the civil or religious buildings designed or built by Raphael in Rome, and the frescoes and paintings, housed in churches or museums, whether executed in the city or arrived there at a later stage.

The catalogue presents Christ Carrying the Cross, recently rediscovered by Carlo Falciani in a private collection, which was born out of the intense friendship between the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) with Bindo Altoviti (1491-1557), important banker and refined art collector and patron. The artwork was painted in 1553, just before Vasari's return to Florence to take service as court painter of the Duke Cosimo I de' Medici. The painting shows the extremely high quality reached by Vasari's production in Rome - where he was working for Pope Julius III and where the Florentine banker Bindo Altoviti had a palace and conducted business - and, at the same time, it shows the experimentations of his manner, characterised by the re-elaboration of modern and contemporary models, in this case works of Michelangelo, Francesco Salviati and Sebastiano del Piombo. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Gallerie Nazionali Barberini Corsini, Palazzo Corsini, Rome from 24 January-30 June 2019.Text in English and Italian.

The National Galleries Barberini and Corsini contain paintings and sculptures of exceptional historical and artistic value. Page after page, through the masterpieces of many of the greatest Italian artists from the Middle Ages to the 18th century (Angelico, Raphael, Piero di Cosimo, Bronzino, Lotto, Tintoretto, Cortona, Caravaggio, Bernini, Reni, Guercino, Batoni, Canaletto) the reader can follow the development of art history. The collections also include artwork by Holbein, Murille and Van Dyck, besides a few antique pieces. In addition to the 100 entries, there are descriptions of particularly important elements that are part of the palaces' architecture, such as Borromini's spiral staircase, Bernini's main staircase and the huge ceiling frescoed by Pietro da Cortona.

This catalogue presents masterpieces of calligraphy, painting, sculpture, ceramics, lacquers, and textiles from two of America's greatest Japanese art collections, which are featured in a landmark exhibition at the Asia Society in New York, from February to April, 2020. Impermanence is a pervasive subject in Japanese philosophy and art, and recognising the role of ephemerality is key to appreciating much of Japan's artistic production. The dazzling range of art and objects in this beautifully photographed exhibition catalogue show the broad, yet nuanced, ways that the notion of the ephemeral manifests itself in the arts of Japan throughout history. Insightful contributions from noted scholars explore the aesthetics of impermanence in religion, literature, artefacts, the tea ceremony, and popular culture in objects dating from the late Jomon period (ca. 1000-300 B.C.E.) to the 20th century.Contents:The Art of the Ephemeral;Works in the Exhibition:I. Retrieving Lost Worlds; II. Buddhism: Perpetual Impermanence; III. Tea: Choreographed Ephemerality; IV. Transforming Impermanence into Art.Published to accompany an exhibition at the Asia Society Museum, New York, between 11 February and 26 April 2020.

Everett Fahy’s writings are of fundamental importance to the study of Tuscan Renaissance painting from the late 14th to the 16th century. An endeavour that lasted 50 years, starting with his 1965 essay on Piero di Cosimo and ending with his contributions for the 2015 Florentine exhibition on the same artist. In between Fahy wrote on some of the most acclaimed and loved artists (from Beato Angelico to Botticelli, from Ghirlandaio to the young Michelangelo), but also on lesser known masters such as Lorenzo di Nicolò, Spinello Aretino, the Master of the Campana panels, the Master of the Fiesole Adoration of the Magi, etc., and through his pioneering studies rediscovered minor artistic schools, such as the Lucca school. Fahy reconstruction of Fra Bartolomeo’s early career is considered a classic of art historiography. The selected texts (vol. 1) are arranged in the order of appearance, while the plates (vol. 2), following chronological order, make up an atlas of two centuries of Tuscan painting.With texts in English (36), French (1), and Italian (10).

In 1542 Pope Paolo III Farnese, with the approval of Michelangelo, commissioned to Perino del Vaga (1501–1547) a tapestry basement for the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel (Vatican).The Spalliera was never completed, but its model, painted on canvas, was later acquired by cardinal Bernardino Spada to be placed in his roman palace (now Galleria Spada), where it was used in radically different fashion as a frieze, completed with parts by other artists.The book is the first in-depth study of this work and of its significance in Perino’s artistic career, marked by an intense dialogue with Michelangelo’s art. It also explores the importance attributed by Michelangelo to decoration, apparently antithetical to the heroic dimension for which he is celebratedThe reception of the Spalliera by different artists is studied through a group of drawings deriving from it and lasting until the baroque age, as attested by Rubens.

The French city of Limoges was world famous for the production of champlevé enamels during the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance a revival of Limoges enamels took place, but the technique employed was that of painted enamel. Triptychs with a sacred subject, conceived as a painting but shining like jewellery and built with durable materials, became popular. The three works held at the Bargello National Museum in Florence are attributable to Nardon Pénicaud (1470–1542), a primary artist with an active workshop. The three enamel paintings came from the famous collection of Louis Carrand, a Lyon antiquarian, who donated them to the Bargello in the 19th century. Their story is told in Ilaria Ciseri’s essay. Paola Venturelli analyses the historical and artistic aspects of the works and places them in the context of contemporary enamel production. The final contributions from the Opificio delle Pietre Dure address the conservation of the three delicate enamels and analyses materials and pigments.

Palazzo Vecchio, which towers over piazza della Signoria, at the centre of Florence, is an iconic building and from the Middle Ages to the Medici family to present day it has been the seat of civic power.Among its most admired features are the marvellous grotesque decorations which animate the walls and vaults of the courtyard and several rooms. Grotesques are a type of wall decoration, in stucco or fresco, often with the addition of gold, that developed in the Renaissance when the vaults of the Domus Aurea in Rome, which were underground (considered grottos hence the name), were rediscovered by artists who drew inspiration from those designs.Palazzo Vecchio’s grotesques are lively, extravagant ornaments, generated by the creativity of artists - among whom Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio (1483-1561) and Marco Marchetti da Faenza (ca. 1526-1588) stand out - and they include, birds, flowers, vegetation and many strange creatures that have a mixture of human and animal traits.

In 1922, Léon Bonnat bequeathed to the Louvre a wonderful album of almost forty drawings by one of the most famous painters of the Florentine Renaissance: Baccio della Porta, known as Fra Bartolommeo (1469-1517). The collection traces the career of the artist, who trained in Florence around 1485 with Cosimo Rosselli, but above all in the shadow of the most brilliant workshop of the period, that of Andrea del Verrocchio. Sensitive to the prodigious innovations coming out of this extraordinary environment, which had produced such geniuses as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Leonardo da Vinci in the previous decade, Baccio, as he was then known, studied above all with Lorenzo di Credi, to whom Verrocchio had entrusted the running of the workshop when he left Florence for Venice. Baccio also closely followed all the great Florentine painters of the last decade of the fifteenth century, in particular the works of foreigners who had been in Florence for several years, especially Pietro Perugino, and those of Ghirlandaio's workshop, then at the height of their popularity. The two volumes accurately reproduce the almost forty drawings in the Louvre album accompanied by a commentary written by two museum specialists.Text in French.

This volume collects the papers presented at the international study conference Sculpting in the Renaissance: an art to (com)move / Sculpter à la Renaissance. Un art pour (é)mouvoir organised by the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Castello Sforzesco in Milan to accompany the exhibition Le corps et l'âme. De Donatello à Michel-Ange. Scultures italiennes de la Renaissance (Officina Libraria, 2020), held between 2020 and 2021. With the involvement of some of the most important specialists in Renaissance sculpture, the aim was to investigate the interactions, influences and exchanges between the plastic arts and other Renaissance art forms capable of revealing feelings through expressions of the body, through the works of Agostino di Duccio, Donatello, Michelangelo and other local sculptors. The aim is also to place within their social, devotional and intellectual context the different manifestations of feeling of which sculpture is one of the privileged media. Sacred art themes in particular were addressed, in an attempt to explain their formal evolution in relation to the socio-cultural transformations of the time, but also to local traditions and their dramatisation.Text in English, French and Italian.

Paper scraps, metal filings, wool shearings... dismantled sets, spoiled rags, animal blood...How did these ostensibly worthless by-products of art and industry avoid the flames of the kitchen hearth or the sweep of the apprentice’s broom to spark ingenuity, generate new forms, and propel further acts of creation? Wastework moves beyond the well-researched category of spoliation, foregrounding waste as a material expression of the practices of ordering and classification by which people adjudicated between collection and disposal, wanted and unwanted, salvation and loss. Authors follow the afterlives of spent books and soiled textiles, peek behind the curtain of machine theatre, and venture into the smith’s foundry and the chemist’s laboratory. Bringing together research from historians of art, architecture, science, and the environment, this volume examines acts of disposal and reuse and the consequences these carry for the study of early modern material culture. Drawing from the fields of discard studies and Eco materialism, contributors test the usefulness of contemporary formulations—secondary product cycles, material fatigue, metabolic flows, sustainability, recycling—while also proposing new categories with which to re-imagine the discarded past.

The Tracy diary offers us the unique opportunity to accompany 27 nineteenth century travellers on an adventure of a lifetime, exploring Mount Desert Island, Maine, in August of 1855. This first group of summer visitors was a distinguished company and hailed primarily from New York, Hartford and Boston.In addition to Charles Tracy, a prominent New York lawyer, whose descendants through his son, Charles, daughter, Francis, and son-in-law, J. Pierpont Morgan, continue to summer on the island. The travelling party also included Frederic Edwin Church, a leading Hudson River School artist, and his friend, Theodore Winthrop, who died gallantly in the opening battle of the Civil War and then became posthumously famous as a novelist.After more than 170 years, Church’s playful sketches have been reunited with the first-hand account penned by Tracy, whose words strike a familiar chord in the memory of all who return again and again to the beauty and variety of Mount Desert Island.

Giovanni Battista Franco (before 1510 - 1561) was an Italian mannerist painter, draughtsman and engraver. Native of Venice, he spent the first part of his career in Rome, but by 1536 had settled in Florence. Back in Rome by 1542, he painted a fresco of the Capture of Saint John the Baptist for the Oratorio di San Giovanni Decollato. In 1545 he was summoned by Duke Guidobaldo II to Urbino, where he painted frescoes in the Duomo (destroyed). The last ten years of his career were spent in Venice, where among his significant works are a Baptism of Christ for San Francesco della Vigna and the ceiling decoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi and the Biblioteca Marciana. Franco is better known as a draughtsman and recent scholars such as A. E. Popham found much to praise in 'Franco's extraordinary skill, with his rather scratchy but effective line, and his combination of Michelangelesque and Raphaelesque forms.' Among his drawings there are numerous studies of antique subjects taken from Roman sarcophagi.Text in French.

From medieval manuscript to Japanese prints, from Steinlen's splendid drawings to 17th century prints, the author introduces the reader to the hundreds of books and manuscripts (belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris) in which the lovely feline is represented. The cat has been the main character of many tales, but also the inhabitant of the most diverse books: from natural histories to household manuals, from medieval prayer books to famous writers' manuscripts. A wonderful selection for all who love cats and books! Contents: Preface by Pierre Rosenberg Chapter I, A History of the Cat Chapter II, Tales of Cats Chapter III, What a Lovely Cat! Chapter IV, Cats and the Feminine Chapter V, The Cat as a Muse

In this study Rab Hatfield provides a thorough, no-nonsense analysis of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Gioconda. The book begins with a consideration of the generally known sources and documents and a careful look at the painting as we know it now. There follow discussions of rarely examined laboratory photographs and of a recently discovered annotation by Ser Agostino Vespucci in a book he owned of letters by Cicero, from which we learn that Leonardo left a portrait of "Lisa del Giocondo" unfinished no later than October 1503. The book concludes with a hitherto unknown letter written in 1515 by Filippo Strozzi to Lorenzo de' Medici, Captain General of the Florentine Armies and soon to become Duke of Urbino, describing some supposed advances these two men made to Mon(n)a Lisa. The laboratory photographs and newly discovered sources make it clear that the Mona Lisa has probably been reworked twice, that it in fact depicts Mon(n)a Lisa del Giocondo, and that it would be better if we spoke of it as La Gioconda rather than the Mona Lisa.Contents: Part One: Setting the Stage - I. Vasari and Some Other Well Known Sources and Documents. II. The Mona Lisa As We See It Now. Part Two: The Three Mona Lisas. III. The Changes: The x-ray photographs and the first Mona Lisa. IV. The Annotation of Ser Agostino Vespucci. V. Filippo Strozzi's letter.

500 years ago in Venice, the first ghetto was born. It was the first of many 'Jewish enclosures' ordained by political powers, such as the Venetian senate. A place to confine, it soon became an important cosmopolitan and commercial centre of the Republic. The architectural structure of its housing, which became extraordinarily high to accommodate the increasing number of inhabitants, is strictly interlaced with Venetian history, economy and culture. As one of the main Jewish centres in Italy and the Mediterranean, Venice played a crucial role in the Jewish world. The Venetian word 'geto' (from 'gettare', to throw away) originated from the sector of Venice where scrap metal accumulated from foundries. This was the area assigned to the Jews. Thus the word, over the course of time, has become a synonym for segregation. "Venice, the Jews, and Europe" exhibition runs in Venice until November 13 2016. Dontatella Calabi will be promoting his book at the 'Beyond the Ghetto' symposium in New York, hosted by the Center for Jewish History, on 18-19 September 2016.

Giovanni Morelli changed the way we look at art. Before Morelli (1816-1891), the attribution of a painting to a particular artist or school was often based on overall impression, hearsay, even gut feeling. But Morelli, having trained as a medical doctor to look closely at anatomical detail, applied scientific rigor to understanding the works of masters such as Titian, Leonardo, and Raphael, and of other Renaissance and Baroque painters. By closely scrutinising, analysing and comparing details overlooked by most other collectors, critics, and curators, his radical 'Morellian method' became the basis of modern art connoisseurship.A proud Italian of Swiss Protestant heritage, Morelli was also a staunch patriot. He risked his life in the Italian Wars of Independence, and was elected four times to the parliament of the newly unified nation. In 1873 he was nominated senator for life. As a statesman he fought for his homeland's cultural patrimony: at a time when many of Italy's great art collections were being snapped up by foreign collectors and museums, he introduced some of the world's first legislation to prevent their loss to the nation. The Life of Giovanni Morelli in Risorgimento Italy is the first full biography of this important figure, including his romantic friendships with remarkable women such as Clementina Frizzoni, Laura Acton Minghetti (wife of the Italian prime minister), and Princess Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria and subsequently empress of Germany). At his death he bequeathed his art collection to the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, the birthplace of his mother, a city he loved.

In 1917 Pablo Picasso travelled to Rome and Naples with Jean Cocteau and Igor Stravinskij. During this trip, for the first time, he could admire directly Hellenistic and Roman sculpture, that of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but also the Roman frescoes of Pompei. The first exhibition dedicated to Picasso's sculpture to be held in Rome, and its accompanying catalogue, were conceived as a journey through the centuries that chronologically follows the interpretation of forms and different themes - stories and myths, bodies and figures, objects and fragments - in sculpture. The exhibition of masterpieces of the great Spanish master is accompanied by previously unpublished images of his sculpture studios (by Edward Quinn) that narrate the context in which these works were born. The catalogue includes essays that explore the visual and conceptual dialogue between the works of Picasso and works of the past, illustrating and examining over fifty works, some of which have never been exhibited before.

The masi are the equivalent of farms in the Alpine area of the Dolomites (Sudtirol/Alto Adige in northern Italy). Val Gardena, one of the valleys of Sudtirol, houses a great number of masi, some dating back to the thirteenth century. The historical importance of these farms resides in the richness and variety of their building techniques and the sheer beauty of their vernacular architecture perfectly integrated in the stunning landscape of the Dolomites. Recent socio-economic development and the difficulty to adapt the older masi to modern needs has endangered them. A movement to map and preserve these precious witnesses of the material culture of Val Gardena is taking place. Photographing and exhibiting the images of these buildings - shedding light on their cultural role, forms and the architectural elements - in the mountain villages and later in the Architecture Departments of universities in Italy and surrounding countries (Austria, Germany) is a way to increase awareness on the importance of preserving this distinctive vernacular architecture. Text in Ladin, German, Italian with short abstracts in English.

Luigi Valadier, son of the French-born Andrea, obtained his silversmith license in 1760 and became one of the most celebrated artists in Europe, working for the noble families of Rome (Borghese, Odescalchi, Chigi, Orsini), cardinals and popes and a broad international clientele which included the Duke of Northumberland, Madame du Barry, the Balì of Malta, Jacques-Laure Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, the King of Sweden, Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, the Count of the North, heir to the Russian throne, etc. His workshop situated near Piazza di Spagna employed dozens of craftsmen and produced not only silverware but also bronze statues, often copies of ancient sculptures, magnificent clocks, vases in precious marbles, lamps, huge candelabras, furniture, desers, reliquaries and liturgical vessels, and much more. In 1785 while completing commissions for the Borghese prince and working on the cast of the enormous bell of St Peter's, he committed suicide by drowning in the Tiber river, possibly due to the severe economic challenges from which his extraordinary workshop was suffering.

"In this radiant biography, the painter Anne Eisner springs to life as a figure of formidable originality... Christie McDonald’s heroic, feminist work restores Eisner as artist and as a key anthropological observer of her time." - Rosanna Warren, author of Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters.   This biography traces Anne Eisner's life and art between cultures: from her early years and artistic career in New York, through living at the edge of the Ituri Forest in the ex-Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo), to her return to New York. Eisner came of age in the 1930s and 1940s, with the struggle among artists and intellectuals to combat fascism and create a better world. Leaving behind a successful career as a painter, Anne followed anthropologist Patrick Putnam, with whom she fell in love, to the multi-cultural community of Epulu. As an American woman and painter, her focus on cultural and aesthetic values, her belief in freedom and equality, brought an eccentric perspective to the colonial context. Unanticipated challenges forced her to think about who she was, as she agreed to marry under unfamiliar conditions, became one of the mothers, hosted researchers and tourists, and attempted to care for Putnam in his tragic decline. That her art sustained her throughout as a discipline (sketching, drawing, painting) reveals to what extent Anne was able to express joy in creativity; the beauty of her art testifies to its transformative power.

Luca Giordano (Naples, 1634–1705) was one of Italy’s most celebrated Baroque painters when he travelled to Florence, where his art was already appreciated and collected. He received many commissions, but certainly the most prestigious was that for the decoration of the vault of the new wing of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, the ancient house of Lorenzo the Magnificent which was then owned by the Marquis Francesco Riccardi. The Riccardi family was strictly connected to the Medicis and the decorative program of the great hall, known as Gallery of Mirrors, was centred upon the Apotheosis of the Medicis and several mythological scenes which illustrate the progress of humanity. The exhibition and its catalogue document this masterpiece through the ten painted sketches by Giordano (exhibited under the very frescoes) and circa 30 other paintings from his Florentine period (1682–1685) by the aptly named Luca “fa presto” (fare presto = to be fast).

The book, edited and written by one of the major scholars of African art, traces a history of the collecting of African art in Italy, starting with a legendary figure like Guido Monzino and arriving to contemporary collectors. More than one hundred objects that have belonged or belong to Italian collections are illustrated in full colour and give a full perception of the high quality of the works of art collected. A year by year chronology/bibliography lists all events (exhibitions, conferences) and publications linked to African art in Italy. Four interviews to famous Italian collectors of African art close the book. A DVD with the videos of the two most important exhibitions of African art in Italy (Rome 1990 and Turin 2003/2004) is included in the book.

In 1678 Louis XIV decided to renovate the small chateau of Louis XIII; just four years later he moved his government into the huge palace and splendid gardens. This book follows in the footsteps of the visitor. It starts, as suggested by Louis the XIV himself, "in the vestibule of the Marble courtyard", moving on to the seven great salons of the King's Great Apartment, reaching the 357 mirrors of the celebrated Hall of Mirrors. The Great Apartment of the Queen - nineteen " Enfants de France" were born here - illustrates the more intimate yet superb King's interior apartments, followed by those of Mme du Barry, the King's mistress, and Marie-Antoinette. At the lower level are those of the Dauphin and the Dauphine, of the courtiers etc. Upon leaving the Royal Chapel, there's a tour of the water parterres and the Grand Canal, whose reflections are beautifully reproduced by Jack Tow's watercolours. Finally, the tour reaches the domain offered by Louis XVI to his spouse - the Grand Trianon, in rose marble and porphyry, which allows the artist to portray the flowery exuberance of its famous gardens.The final pages are dedicated to the Petit Trianon - entirely renovated for Napoleon who spent time here with the empress, Marie-Louise - and the Hamlet, where Marie-Antoinette, sensible to Rousseau's ideas, could find a refreshing break from the court's demanding etiquette.

Baccio Bandinelli (Florence, 1493-1560) was one of the sculptors that worked for the house of Medici during the first half of the XVI century. A pupil of Giovan Francesco Rustici, he was strongly influenced by Michelangelo. One of his main works, 'Hercules and Cacus', is visible in the Piazza della Signoria and seen by millions of tourists each year. He also worked in Rome where he had been called by pope Clement VII. But, while his talent for sculpture was put in doubt by critics and rivals (Benvenuto Cellini, for instance), Bandinelli's extraordinary drawing skills were universally appreciated - Vasari declared him "unrivalled" in this domain. Over two hundred drawings held in the Louvre are analysed in this scholarly publication: they include autograph drawings, those by his workshop and those rejected.

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne is, with the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo's most ambitious project of his later years. This masterpiece has been under restoration and it will be exhibited in its newly found splendour at the Louvre. There, for the first time, it will be flanked by cartoons with the same subject (but with St. John the Baptist) held at the National Gallery, London, and by preparatory sketches and drawings, thus allowing the public to gain new insights in Leonardo's method of work. The exhibition and the catalogue present 131 works by Leonardo and other contemporary artists, such as Raphael and Luini, placing the St. Anne in its proper art historical context. This great work has had an enduring influence on the development of art in the High Renaissance (Michelangelo, Solario, Andrea del Sarto, etc.), but its effects are seen on paintings much more recent, such as those of Odilon Redon and Max Ernst.Text in French.Contents:The construction of formThe cartoon of 1501First studies for the St. Anne of the LouvreThe cartoon for the the St. Anne of the LouvreNew studies; the second version of the compositionLast studiesThe drawings on the reverseEmulation in FlorenceThe St. Anne in Milan: copies and variationsThe St. Anne in FranceThe fascination for the St. Anne

Since 1972, the Drawings and Prints Department of the Louvre has published the reportoire of the Italian drawings held in its collections. This volume, the tenth in the series, is dedicated to the Bolognese and Emilian artists of the 17th century. Seicento is considered by all as the golden age of Bolognese painting, which not only enriched the city with many masterpieces but saw many of its main artists going to Rome, the capital of Baroque, to decorate its churches and palaces (from the Galleria Farnese by Annibale Carracci to the many domes frescoed by Lanfranco).The volume includes close to 1000 drawings by artists such as Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, Bartolomeo Cesi, Bartolomeo Schedoni, Guido Reni, Giovanni Lanfranco, Elisabetta Sirani, Giuseppe Maria Crespi e Donato Creti and it traces the evolution of draughtmanship in Bologna and Emilia, from the Accademia degli Incamminati to the spreading of classicism and baroque.Text in French.Contents: Preface by Henri Loyrette (President of the Louvre); Introduction; The Teaching of the Carraccis; Contemporary Artists of the Carraccis; The Influcence of Bologna; Baroque and Classiscism in Bologna and Emilia; Bibliography; Tables of Concordance; List of the Artists; Index of the CollectorsAlso available:Battista Franco ISBN 9788889854457Baccio Bandinelli ISBN 9788889854631

Essential to art libraries and art historians who study Leonardo and the Renaissance. The first book to have the photos of the restored masterpiece, complete with many new details As the recent blockbuster Leonardo exhibit - the fastest-selling exhibit ever held at the National Gallery in London - proved, the interest in Leonardo is huge. The Virgin and Child with St. Anne is, with the Battle of Anghiari, Leonardo's most ambitious project of his later years. This masterpiece has been under restoration and it will be exhibited in its newly found splendor at the Louvre. There, for the first time, it will be flanked by cartoons with the same subject (but with St. John the Baptist) held at the National Gallery, London, and by preparatory sketches and drawings, thus allowing the public to gain new insights in Leonardo's method of work. The exhibition and the catalogue present 131 works by Leonardo and other contemporary artists, such as Raphael and Luini, placing the St. Anne in its proper art historical context. This great work has had an enduring influence on the development of art in the High Renaissance (Michelangelo, Solario, Andrea del Sarto, etc.), but its effects are seen on paintings much more recent, such as those of Odilon Redon and Max Ernst.

Alphacats are an elite breed: they are cats with a pedigree (well, most of them ) and painted almost hair by hair by scientific illustrator Gabriella Gallerani and here honoured in alphabetical order. Beautifully rendered in full colour, to each, their own letter - around which to climb, hide, stretch, play, yawn or simply show off. Thus, A for Angora, B for Bengal, C for Ceylon, D for Devon Rex - but Alphacats are also the cats that have made history - literature, movies, cartoons, music and the happiness of writers, scientists, kings and politicians. The names of over 300 "alpha" cats, with just as many witty stories and feline anecdotes, creates a repertoire of the unique and memorable characters that make each cat worthy of a name. From Boise, Hemingway's favourite, to Pulcinella, who inspired Scarlatti's Cat's fugue sonata, from Brillant, Louis XV's beautiful Angora to Socks, the Clintons' pet during their White House tenure, each letter of the alphabet has many inspiring names.