I'm going to Italy this summer, for a return trip to Rome and Naples and a first-ever visit to Florence. I guess I'm doing my own version of a grand tour -- I'd like to see as much artwork by the masters as I can: Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Artemisia Gentileschi (I read "The Passion of Artemisia" last summer -- great book!), Bernini (the "Angels and Demons" influence), and maybe more.

Can anyone recommend any good general books that cover the great Renaissance artists and how to find them in Rome and Florence? I'd hate to visit a city and then learned that I missed something good just because it wasn't in the Uffizi or the Vatican.

Thanks!

A fairly detailed guidebook is probably your best bet; a general book on Renaissance art may not mention the locations of the art works or may only mention them for the ones of which there are illustrations in the book.

For Rome, the revised version of Georgina Masson's Companion Guide to Rome; for Florence, Eve Borsook's Companion Guide to Florence.

You can't help but trip over Bernini in Rome, but the largest collection of his sculptures in Rome is in the Galleria Borghese (reserve ahead; there is a Web site); other works are in the churches of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Sant'Andrea del Quirinale, one in Trastevere whose name I can't remember, and of course, in St. Peter's Basilica.
And then there are the fountains, chiefly the one of the Rivers in Piazza Navona.

In Rome, there are Caravaggios in San Luigi dei Francesi and, if memory serves, Santa Maria del Popolo.

Your list would be more High Renaissance and after (what happened to Leonardo?).

I think that you also need to look at the stuff before -- go back to Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Masaccio ("Tribute Money," "The Holy Trinity" (the latter is reputedly the first extant painting to use one-point perspective correctly), Boticelli, Donatello (sculpture), Brunelleschi (Dome) etc.

A general art history book will be useful. Oxford puts one that I've seen that I like, but which I didn't buy. I like "Art of the Western World" (companion book to a PBS series I've never seen).

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...o&n=507846

You might want to look at this previous thread about Italian art books:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/
threadselect.jsp?fid=2

BTW, if Dan Brown has people thinking that Bernini was a Renaissance artist, he's even better at distorting the truth than I thought.

Uck -- I stupidly split up the URL so that it wasn't too long for the space, and now it's weird. Anyway, it's all one URL....

KT, you need to find that thread and then click on it. In your address box you should see a link that looks like fid=2 (for Europe) & tid=xxxxxxxx (for the thread id).

Then go to the address box and highlight the whole link. (For example, put your mouse over the link and hit the left mouse button.)

Do Ctrl-C (copy).

That copies the correct link.

Then type your message and do Ctrl-V (paste).

I meant -- click title of thread.

111op-- Thanks. I did copy and paste, but then I split it in two because I was afraid it might be long enough not to fit in the space for postings without making people use the horizontal scroll.

Then go to makeashorterlink.com or tinyurl.com and have them shorten the link for you.

There is a book called "Art for Travellers Italy: The Essential Guide to Viewing Renaissance Art" which is exactly what you are looking for. It has guides to all of the main museums and churches as well as many of the smaller ones, including lots of pictures. It's available on Amazon.
The Blude Guides for the various cities are also good for art but are kind of dry and have no pictures. There are also Art Shop Eat guides for Rome and Florence which are very good for art.