The Best Italian Art and Renaissance Books
“What are the best Italian Art & Renaissance Books?” We looked at 254 different titles, aggregating and ranking the entries in an attempt to answer that very question!
Part 5 of our Italy week is Renaissance & Art!
The lists we made are:
Below you can find the top 25 books, all appearing on 2 or more lists, with images, summaries, and links. The remaining books, as well as the articles we used are at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
The Top Italian Art & Renaissance Books
25 .) Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King
Lists It Appears On:
- The National Gallery
- Goodreads
“On August 19, 1418, a competition concerning Florence’s magnificent new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore–already under construction for more than a century–was announced: “”Whoever desires to make any model or design for the vaulting of the main Dome….shall do so before the end of the month of September.”” The proposed dome was regarded far and wide as all but impossible to build: not only would it be enormous, but its original and sacrosanct design shunned the flying buttresses that supported cathedrals all over Europe. The dome would literally need to be erected over thin air.
Of the many plans submitted, one stood out–a daring and unorthodox solution to vaulting what is still the largest dome (143 feet in diameter) in the world. It was offered not by a master mason or carpenter, but by a goldsmith and clockmaker named Filippo Brunelleschi, then forty-one, who would dedicate the next twenty-eight years to solving the puzzles of the dome’s construction. In the process, he did nothing less than reinvent the field of architecture.”
24 .) Cosimo de’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance by Dale Kent
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
Cosimo de’ Medici (1389–1464), the fabulously wealthy banker who became the leading citizen of Florence in the fifteenth century, spent lavishly as the city’s most important patron of art and literature. This remarkable book is the first comprehensive examination of the whole body of works of art and architecture commissioned by Cosimo and his sons. By looking closely at this spectacular group of commissions, we gain an entirely new picture of their patron and of the patron’s point of view. Recurrent themes in the commissions—from Fra Angelico’s San Marco altarpiece to the Medici Palace—indicate the main interests to which Cosimo’s patronage gave visual expression. Dale Kent offers new insights and perspectives on the individual objects comprising the Medici oeuvre by setting them within the context of civic and popular culture in early Renaissance Florence, and of Cosimo’s life as the leader of the Medici lineage and the dominant force in the governing elite.
23 .) Death in Florence: the Medici, Savonarola and the Battle for the Soul of the Renaissance City by Paul Strathern
Lists It Appears On:
- The National Gallery
- Goodreads
“By the end of the fifteenth century, Florence was well established as the home of the Renaissance. As generous patrons to the likes of Botticelli and Michelangelo, the ruling Medici embodied the progressive humanist spirit of the age, and in Lorenzo de’ Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent) they possessed a diplomat capable of guarding the militarily weak city in a climate of constantly shifting allegiances between the major Italian powers.
However, in the form of Savonarola, an unprepossessing provincial monk, Lorenzo found his nemesis. Filled with Old Testament fury and prophecies of doom, Savonarola’s sermons reverberated among a disenfranchised population, who preferred medieval Biblical certainties to the philosophical interrogations and intoxicating surface glitter of the Renaissance. Savonarola’s aim was to establish a ‘City of God’ for his followers, a new kind of democratic state, the likes of which the world had never seen before. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events―invasions, trials by fire, the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’, terrible executions and mysterious deaths―featuring a cast of the most important and charismatic Renaissance figures.”
22 .) Dictionary of the Italian Renaissance by John Hale
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
Within the vast literature of the Renaissance, this is the one indispensable book: for the student who is looking for a guide to the complicated maze of Italian Renaissance political history; the scholar who needs a convenient, unified reference sources; the art lover who wants to discover the background to the masterpieces of painting and sculpture; the traveler in Italy who seeks to understand the great works of art and architecture within their context; and also the general reader who wants to learn more about this fascinating historical and cultural epoch.
21 .) Duccio to Leonardo : Italian Painting 1250-1500 by Simona Di Nepi
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
This generously illustrated book presents highlights from the National Gallery’s display of Italian Renaissance painting, one of the richest collections of its kind in the world. Duccio to Leonardo focuses on Italian masterpieces made between 1250 and 1500, including highlights such as Duccio’s Annunciation, Botticelli’s Venus and Mars, and Leonardo’s Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist. It begins with a short introduction on the formation of the collection, before discussing each of the chosen works.
20 .) History of Italian Renaissance Art by Frederick Hartt
Lists It Appears On:
- Tuscany Tours
- Goodreads
A broad survey of art and architecture in Italy between c. 1250 and 1600, this book approaches the works from the point of view of the artist as individual creator and as an expression of the city within which the artist was working.
19 .) Italian Art, 1250-1550: The Relation of Renaissance Art to Life and Society by Bruce Cole
Lists It Appears On:
- Tuscany Tours
- Questia
This survey of Italian Renaissance art, from a new and different perspective, shows how art was a vital part of society and how all types of art and artists reflected the needs and aspirations of the culture from which they arose. Most books on Renaissance art are based on a chronological study of the major artists and their works. In this book, Bruce Cole covers the major types of art from c. 1250 to c. 1550, discusses their origins and development, documents their use and function, and describes their form and how and why the artists shaped them that way. Art is thus firmly connected with the life and society of the Renaissance rather than viewed as a separate entity: painting and sculpture are seen in their proper context. After a wide-ranging introduction, there are chapters on Italian Renaissance art in relation to domestic life, worship, civic life, death and afterlife, and Renaissance images and ideals.
18 .) Italian Renaissance Painting by James Beck
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
17 .) Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Art of the Figure by Michael W. Cole
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
“In late 1504 and early 1505, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) and Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) were both at work on commissions they had received to paint murals in Florence’s City Hall. Leonardo was to depict a historic battle between Florence and Milan, Michelangelo one between Florence and Pisa. Though neither project was ever completed, the painters’ mythic encounter shaped art and its history in the decades and centuries that followed.
This concise, lucid, and thought-provoking book looks again at the one moment when Leonardo and Michelangelo worked side by side, seeking to identify the roots of their differing ideas of the figure in 15th-century pictorial practices and to understand what this contrast meant to the artists and writers who followed them. Through close investigation of these two artists, Michael W. Cole provides a new account of critical developments in Italian Renaissance painting.”
16 .) Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- NPR
The year is 1570, and a new novice has just been forced into the Italian convent of Santa Caterina. Ripped by her family from the man she loves, sixteen-year-old Serafina is sharp and defiant. Her first night inside the walls is spent in an incandescent rage so violent that the dispensary mistress, Suora Zuana, is dispatched to the girl’s cell to sedate her. Thus begins a complex relationship of trust and betrayal. As Serafina rails against her incarceration, disorder and rebellion mount inside the convent, while beyond its walls, the dictates of the Counter-Reformation begin to impose a regime of oppression that threatens what little freedom the nuns have enjoyed. Acclaimed author Sarah Dunant brings the intricate Renaissance world compellingly to life in this rich, engrossing, multifaceted love story encompassing the passions of the flesh, the exultation of the spirit, and the deep, enduring power of friendship.
15 .) The Art of the Renaissance by Peter Murray; Linda Murray
Lists It Appears On:
- Tuscany Tours
- Questia
14 .) The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
“The courtly customs and manners of Italy to a great extent characterized the Renaissance, which elevated art and expression to new heights. Baldassare Castiglione published this book with the intention of chronicling the manners, customs and traditions which underpinned how courtiers, nobles, and their servants, behaved.
Although ostensibly a book of etiquette and good conduct, Castiglione’s treatise carries enormous historical value. He derived his observations directly from the many gatherings and receptions conducted by society’s elite. Conversations with the officials, diplomats and nobility of the era further enhanced the accuracy of this book, imbuing it with an authenticity seldom seen elsewhere. “
13 .) The Craftsman’s Handbook by Cennino d’Andrea Cennini
Lists It Appears On:
- The Guardian
- The National Gallery
“This is D. V. Thompson’s definitive English translation of Il Libro dell’Arte, an intriguing guide to methods of painting, written in fifteenth-century Florence. Embodying the secrets and techniques of the great masters, it served as an art student’s introduction to the ways of his craft.
Anyone who has ever looked at a medieval painting and marveled at the brilliance of color and quality of surface that have endured for 500 years should find this fascinating reading. It describes such lost arts as gilding stone, making mosaics of crushed eggshell, fashioning saints’ diadems, coloring parchment, making goat glue, and regulating your life in the interests of decorum — which meant shunning women, the greatest cause of unsteady hands in artists. You are told how to make green drapery, black for monks’ robes, trees and plants, oils, beards in fresco, and the proper proportions of a man’s body. (“”I will not tell you about the irrational animals because you will never discover any system of proportion in them.””) So practical are the details that readers might be tempted to experiment with the methods given here for their own amusement and curiosity.”
12 .) The Italian Paintings Before 1400 by Dillian Gordon
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
The National Gallery in London houses one of the most important collections of early Italian paintings outside Italy, including works by Cimabue, Duccio, Giotto and the di Cione brothers. This completely updated catalogue of the collection is the first published since 1989, and it now includes four exceptional acquisitions from the intervening years: the 13th-century diptych now attributed to the Master of the Borgo Crucifix, The Virgin and Child by Cimabue, The Virgin and Child by the Clarisse Master, and The Coronation of the Virgin by Bernardo Daddi.
11 .) The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance by Paul Strathern
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
“The Medici is a remarkably modern story of power, money and ambition. Against the background of an age which saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence, as well as the Italian Renaissance which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello, as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola, both of whom clashed with the religious authorities.
In his enthralling study, Strathern also follows the fortunes of those members of the Medici family who achieved success away from Florence, including the two Medici popes and Catherine de Medici, who became Queen of France and played a major role in that country through three turbulent reigns. “
10 .) The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
Il Principe (The Prince) is a political treatise by the Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. Originally called De Principatibus (About Principalities), it was written in 1513, but not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death. The treatise is not representative of the work published during his lifetime, but it is the most remembered, and the work responsible for bringing “Machiavellian” into wide usage as a pejorative term. It has also been suggested by some critics that the piece is, in fact, a satire.
9 .) The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
Lists It Appears On:
- The National Gallery
- Goodreads
“One of the world’s most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.
Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius―a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.”
8 .) The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance: Geography, Mobility, and Style by David Young Kim
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
“This important and innovative book examines artists’ mobility as a critical aspect of Italian Renaissance art. It is well known that many eminent artists such as Cimabue, Giotto, Donatello, Lotto, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian traveled. This book is the first to consider the sixteenth-century literary descriptions of their journeys in relation to the larger Renaissance discourse concerning mobility, geography, the act of creation, and selfhood.
David Young Kim carefully explores relevant themes in Giorgio Vasari’s monumental Lives of the Artists, in particular how style was understood to register an artist’s encounter with place. Through new readings of critical ideas, long-standing regional prejudices, and entire biographies, The Traveling Artist in the Italian Renaissance provides a groundbreaking case for the significance of mobility in the interpretation of art and the wider discipline of art history.”
7 .) The Ugly Renaissance by Alexander Lee
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
Tourists today flock to Italy by the millions to admire the stunning achievements of the Renaissance—paintings, statues, and buildings that are the legacy of one of the greatest periods of cultural rebirth and artistic beauty the world has ever seen. But beneath the elegant surface lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption. In this meticulously researched and lively portrait, Renaissance scholar Alexander Lee illuminates the dark and titillating contradictions that existed alongside the enlightened spirit of the time: the scheming bankers, greedy politicians, bloody rivalries, murderous artists, religious conflicts, rampant disease, and indulgent excess without which many of the most beautiful monuments of the Renaissance would never have come into being.
6 .) Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Representation, Identity by Paola Tinagli & Mary Rogers
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
Between c1350 and c1650, Italian urban societies saw much debate on women¹s nature, roles, education, and behaviour. This book fills a gap in the still burgeoning literature on all aspects of women¹s lives in this period. Using a broad range of material, most of which never translated before, this book illuminates the ideals and realities informing the lives of women within the context of civic and courtly culture in Renaissance Italy. The text is divided into three sections: contemporary views on the nature of women, and ethical and aesthetic ideals seen as suitable to them; life cycles from birth to death, punctuated by the rites of passage of betrothal, marriage and widowhood; women¹s roles in the convent, the court, the workplace, and in cultural life.Through their exploration of these themes, Mary Rogers and Paola Tinagli demonstrate that there was no single ‘Renaissance woman’. The realities of women¹s experiences were rich and various, and their voices speak of diverse possibilities for emotionally rich and socially useful lives.
5 .) Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy by Michael Baxandall
Lists It Appears On:
- The National Gallery
- Five Books
- Tuscany Tours
Serving as both an introduction to fifteenth-century Italian painting and as a text on how to interpret social history from the style of pictures in a given historical period, this new edition to Baxandall’s pre-eminent scholarly volume examines early Renaissance painting, and explains how the style of painting in any society reflects the visual skills and habits that evolve out of daily life. Renaissance painting, for example, mirrors the experience of such activities as preaching, dancing, and gauging barrels. The volume includes discussions of a wide variety of painters, including Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Stefano di Giovanni, Sandro Botticelli, Masaccio, Luca Signorelli, Boccaccio, and countless others. Baxandall also defines and illustrates sixteen concepts used by a contemporary critic of painting, thereby assembling the basic equipment needed to explore fifteenth-century art.
4 .) The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt
Lists It Appears On:
- Daily History
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a work by Jacob Burckhardt now brought to you in this new edition of the timeless classic.
3 .) Art and Love in Renaissance Italy by Andrea Bayer and Beverly Louise Brown
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- The Online Book Page
- The National Gallery
“Many famous Italian Renaissance artworks were made to celebrate love and marriage. They were the pinnacles of a tradition—dating from the early Renaissance—of commemorating betrothal, marriage, and the birth of a child by commissioning extraordinary objects or exchanging them as gifts. This important volume is the first to examine the entire range of works to which Renaissance rituals of love and marriage gave rise and makes a major contribution to our understanding of Renaissance art in its broader cultural context. Some 140 works of art, dating from about 1400 to 1600, are discussed by a distinguished group of scholars and are reproduced in full color.
Marriage and childbirth gifts are the point of departure. These range from maiolica, glassware, and jewelry to birth trays, musical instruments, and nuptial portraits. Bonds of love of another sort were represented in erotic drawings and prints. From these precedents, an increasingly inventive approach to subjects of love and marriage culminated in paintings by some of the greatest artists of the Renaissance, including Giulio Romano, Lorenzo Lotto, and Titian.”
2 .) The Lives of the Artists by Giorgio Vasari
Lists It Appears On:
- The Guardian
- The National Gallery
- The Daily Beast
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term “Renaissance,” was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
1 .) Art in Renaissance Italy, 1350-1500 by Evelyn Welch
Lists It Appears On:
- National Gallery
- Goodreads
- The National Gallery
- National Gallery
- The National Gallery
The Italian Renaissance was a pivotal period in the history of Western culture during which artists such as Masaccio, Donatello, Fra Angelico, and Leonardo created some of the world’s most influential and exciting works in a variety of artistic fields. Here, Evelyn Welch presents a fresh picture of the Italian Renaissance by challenging traditional scholarship and placing emphasis on recreating the experience of contemporary Italians: the patrons who commissioned the works, the members of the public who viewed them, and the artists who produced them. Art in Renaissance Italy 1350-1500 dramatically revises the traditional story of the Renaissance and takes into account new issues that have greatly enriched our understanding of the period. From paintings and coins to sculptures and tapestries, Welch examines the issues of materials, workshop practices, and artist-patron relationships, and explores the ways in which visual imagery related to contemporary sexual, social, and political behavior.
The Remaining Top Art and Renaissance Books
| # | Book | Author | Lists |
| (Books Appear On 1 List Each) | |||
| 26 | A Companion to Renaissance Drama | Arthur F. Kinney | Goodreads |
| 27 | A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance | J.R. Hale | Goodreads |
| 28 | A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516 | Luca Landucci | The Guardian |
| 29 | A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 | James Shapiro | Goodreads |
| 30 | A. Hyatt Mayor: Selected Writings and a Bibliography | A. Hyatt Mayor | The Online Book Page |
| 31 | Adventures in the Arts: Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets | Marsden Hartley | The Online Book Page |
| 32 | Airborne Particles in Museums | W. W. Nazaroff, Mary P. Ligocki, Lynn G. Salmon, Glen Rowan Cass, Theresa Fall, Michael C. Jones, Harvey I. H. Liu, and Timothy Ma | The Online Book Page |
| 33 | Albrecht Dürer | Norbert Wolf | Goodreads |
| 34 | Apollo: An Illustrated Manual of the History of Art Throughout the Ages | Salomon Reinach, trans. by Florence Simmonds | The Online Book Page |
| 35 | April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici | Lauro Martines | Goodreads |
| 36 | Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages | Richard E. Rubenstein | Goodreads |
| 37 | Art | Clive Bell | The Online Book Page |
| 38 | Art and Anatomy in Renaissance Italy: Images from a Scientific Revolution | The National Gallery | |
| 39 | Art and Life in Renaissance Venice | The National Gallery | |
| 40 | Art and Socialism | William Morris | The Online Book Page |
| 41 | Art and Society in Italy, 1350-1500 | Evelyn Welch | Goodreads |
| 42 | Art of Renaissance Florence, 1400–1600 | The National Gallery | |
| 43 | Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600 | National Gallery | |
| 44 | Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century (Peregrine Books) | Frances A. Yates | Goodreads |
| 45 | Balancing Acts: Reading Sources and Weighing Evidence in Recent Italian Renaissance Art History | Goffen, Rona | Questia |
| 46 | Barbaren und Klassiker: Ein Buch von der Bildnerei Exotischer Völker | Wilhelm Hausenstein | The Online Book Page |
| 47 | Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy | Sheryl E. Reiss; David G. Wilkins | Questia |
| 48 | Bring Out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation | Anthony Grafton | Goodreads |
| 49 | Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane | Andrew Graham-Dixon | The Daily Beast |
| 50 | Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France | Leonie Frieda | Goodreads |
| 51 | Children Of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII 1547-1558 | Alison Weir | Goodreads |
| 52 | Christianity and the Renaissance: Image and Religious Imagination in the Quattrocento | Timothy Verdon; John Henderson | Questia |
| 53 | Christopher Marlowe: A Renaissance Life | Constance Brown Kuriyama | Goodreads |
| 54 | Collected Works | Elizabeth I | Goodreads |
| 55 | Continuity and Change in Art: The Development of Modes of Representation | Sidney J. Blatt; Ethel S. Blatt | Questia |
| 56 | Crucial Instances | Edith Wharton | The Online Book Page |
| 57 | Devotion by Design : Italian Altarpieces before 1500 (HB) | The National Gallery | |
| 58 | Die Grundlegung der modernen Welt (Fischer Weltgeschichte #12) | Ruggiero Romano | Goodreads |
| 59 | Display of Art in the Roman Palace, 1550-1750 | The National Gallery | |
| 60 | Dosso Dossi: Court Painter in Renaissance Ferrara | Peter Humfrey and Mauro Lucco | Everything But The House |
| 61 | Elements of Art Criticism | G. W. Samson | The Online Book Page |
| 62 | Elizabeth and Essex | Lytton Strachey | Goodreads |
| 63 | Elizabeth I | Anne Somerset | Goodreads |
| 64 | Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne | David Starkey | Goodreads |
| 65 | England Under the Tudors | G.R. Elton | Goodreads |
| 66 | Fischer Weltgeschichte: Entstehung des frühneuzeitlichen Europa 1550 – 1648 | Richard van Dülmen | Goodreads |
| 67 | Florence Art and Architecture | The National Gallery | |
| 68 | Florence: A Walking Guide to Its Architecture | Richard J. Goy | Goodreads |
| 69 | Forbidden Friendships | Michael Rocke | The Guardian |
| 70 | From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca: Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master | Keith Christiansen, contrib. by Emanuela Daffra, Andrea De Marchi, Matteo Ceriana, Andrea Di Lorenzo, Matteo Mazzalupi, Livia Carloni, Roberto Bellucci, Cecilia Frosinini, Ciro Castelli, and George Bisacca | The Online Book Page |
| 71 | Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love | Dava Sobel | Goodreads |
| 72 | Gardens of the Renaissance | The National Gallery | |
| 73 | Gothic and Renaissance Art in Nuremberg, 1300-1550 | Rainer Kahsnitz and William D. Wixom, contrib. by Martin Angerer, Guy Bauman, Barbara Drake Boehm, Rainer Brandl, Jane Hayward, Timothy Husband, Walter J. Karcheski, Kurt Löcher, Otto Lohr, Hermann Maué, Helmut Nickel, Klaus Pechstein, Rainer Schoch, Alfred Wendehorst, Leonie von Wilckens, and Johannes Karl Wilhelm Willers | The Online Book Page |
| 74 | Hellas und Rom: Eine Culturgeschichte des Classischen Alterthums | Jacob von Falke | The Online Book Page |
| 75 | Henry VIII: The King and His Court | Alison Weir | Goodreads |
| 76 | Hopes and Fears for Art | William Morris | The Online Book Page |
| 77 | How to Read Italian Renaissance Painting | Stefano Zuffi | Berkeley |
| 78 | Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe | Charles G. Nauert | Daily History |
| 79 | Images and Identity in Fifteenth Century Florence | The National Gallery | |
| 80 | In the Company of the Courtesan | Sarah Dunant | Goodreads |
| 81 | In the Courts of Religious Ladies | Yale Books Blog | |
| 82 | Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art | Paul Barolsky | Questia |
| 83 | Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen | Nancy Rubin Stuart | Goodreads |
| 84 | Italian Renaissance Art | Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier | Berkeley |
| 85 | Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy | The National Gallery | |
| 86 | Kunst | Clive Bell, ed. by Paul Westheim | The Online Book Page |
| 87 | L’Art et le Geste | Jean d’ Udine | The Online Book Page |
| 88 | La Galleria dei Gonzaga, Venduta all’Inghilterra nel 1627-28 | Alessandro Luzio | The Online Book Page |
| 89 | Lectures on Art, and Poems | Washington Allston | The Online Book Page |
| 90 | Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind | Charles Nicholl | The Daily Beast |
| 91 | Limbo | Aldous Huxley | The Online Book Page |
| 92 | Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy | Sarah Bradford | Goodreads |
| 93 | Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici | Miles J. Unger | Goodreads |
| 94 | Making Renaissance Art: Renaissance Art Reconsidered | The National Gallery | |
| 95 | Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles | Stefan Zweig | Goodreads |
| 96 | Mary Queen of Scots | Antonia Fraser | Goodreads |
| 97 | Metamorphosis : Poems Inspired by Titian (PB) | The National Gallery | |
| 98 | Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling | Ross King | Goodreads |
| 99 | Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and His Times | William E. Wallace | The Daily Beast |
| 100 | My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots | John Guy | Goodreads |
| 101 | Negro Art in the Belgian Congo | Léon Kochnitzky | The Online Book Page |
| 102 | Nigel Scribes and Scholars: A guide to the transmission of Greek and Latin Literature | Reynolds, LD and Wilson | Daily History |
| 103 | On Painting | The National Gallery | |
| 104 | Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe | Laurence Bergreen | Goodreads |
| 105 | Ovid & the Metamorphoses of Modern Art From Botticelli to Picasso | Yale Books Blog | |
| 106 | Painted Glories | Yale Books Blog | |
| 107 | Painting in Late Medieval and Renaissance Siena | The National Gallery | |
| 108 | Painting in Renaissance Venice | The National Gallery | |
| 109 | Painting Under Pressure: Fame, Reputation and Demand in Renaissance Florence | The National Gallery | |
| 110 | Paolo Veronese: A Master and His Workshop in Renaissance Venice | Virginia Brilliant | Everything But The House |
| 111 | Patronage, Art, and Society in Renaissance Italy | J. C. Eade; F. W. Kent; | Questia |
| 112 | Pliny and the Artistic Culture of the Italian Renaissance | The National Gallery | |
| 113 | Poison in the Blood: The Memoirs of Lucrezia Borgia | M.G. Scarsbrook | Goodreads |
| 114 | Postcards on Parchment | Yale Books Blog | |
| 115 | Pot-Boilers | Clive Bell | The Online Book Page |
| 116 | Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy | Lauro Martines, | Daily History |
| 117 | Princes of the Renaissance | Orville Prescott | Goodreads |
| 118 | Private Lives in Renaissance Venice | The National Gallery | |
| 119 | Prose Miscellany | Horace P. Biddle | The Online Book Page |
| 120 | Questioni Pratiche di Belle Arti: Restauri, Concorsi, Legislazione, Professione, Insegnamento | Camillo Boito | The Online Book Page |
| 121 | Questioni Pratiche di Belle Arti: Restauri, Concorsi, Legislazione, Professione, Insegnamento | Camillo Boito | The Online Book Page |
| 122 | Renaissance : Taschen Basic (HB) | The National Gallery | |
| 123 | Renaissance Art: A Beginner’s Guide | The National Gallery | |
| 124 | Renaissance Art: A Very Short Introduction | The National Gallery | |
| 125 | Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to Titian (Hardback) | The National Gallery | |
| 126 | Renaissance Fancies and Studies: Being a Sequel to Euphorion | Vernon Lee | The Online Book Page |
| 127 | Renaissance Florence: The Invention of a New Art | The National Gallery | |
| 128 | Renaissance in Italy, 7 vol | John Aldington Symons | Daily History |
| 129 | Renaissance Italy | Gene Bruckner | Daily History |
| 130 | Renaissance People: Lives that Shaped the Modern Age | The National Gallery | |
| 131 | Renaissance Self-Fashioning | Stephen Greenblatt | Five Books |
| 132 | Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe | Margaret W. Ferguson | Goodreads |
| 133 | Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World | Colin Wells | Goodreads |
| 134 | Searching for Shakespeare | Tarnya Cooper | Goodreads |
| 135 | Secret Knowledge | The National Gallery | |
| 136 | Seven Discourses on Art | Joshua Reynolds | The Online Book Page |
| 137 | Shakespeare After All | Marjorie Garber | Goodreads |
| 138 | Shakespeare and Renaissance Europe | Andrew Hadfield | Goodreads |
| 139 | Shakespeare: For All Time | Stanley Wells | Goodreads |
| 140 | Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human | Harold Bloom | Goodreads |
| 141 | Shakespeare: The World as Stage | Bill Bryson | Goodreads |
| 142 | Shakespeare’s Ideas | David Bevington | Goodreads |
| 143 | Shakespeare’s Sonnets | William Shakespeare | Goodreads |
| 144 | Sienese Painting: The Art of a City-Republic | The National Gallery | |
| 145 | Signs of Change | William Morris | The Online Book Page |
| 146 | Since Cézanne | Clive Bell | The Online Book Page |
| 147 | Sketches of Art, Literature, and Character | Mrs. Jameson | The Online Book Page |
| 148 | Stone Giant: Michelangelo’s David and How He Came to Be | Jane Sutcliffe | Goodreads |
| 149 | Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance | Erwin Panofsky | Questia |
| 150 | Studies in the History of the Renaissance | The National Gallery | |
| 151 | Ten Young Artists: Theodoron Awards | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, contrib. by Thomas M. Messer, Linda Shearer, and Diane Waldman | The Online Book Page |
| 152 | The Reformation | Diarmaid MacCulloch | Five Books |
| 153 | The Aesthetic and Miscellaneous Works of Friedrich von Schlegel: Comprising Letters on Christian Art; An Essay on Gothic Architecture; Remarks on the Romance-Poetry of the Middle Ages and on Shakspere; On the Limits of the Beautiful; On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians | Friedrich von Schlegel, trans. by E. J. Millington | The Online Book Page |
| 154 | The Agony and the Ecstasy | Irving Stone | Goodreads |
| 155 | The Art of Italian Renaissance | Rolf Toman | Goodreads |
| 156 | The Art of Renaissance Europe: A Resource for Educators | Bosiljka Raditsa, Rebecca Arkenberg, Deborah L. Krohn, John Kent Lydecker, and Teresa Russo, ed. by Alexandra Bonfante-Warren | The Online Book Page |
| 157 | The Art of the Exposition: Personal Impressions of the Architecture, Sculpture, Mural Decorations, Color Scheme and Other Aesthetic Aspects of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition | Eugen Neuhaus | The Online Book Page |
| 158 | The Artist, The Philosopher and The Warrior | The National Gallery | |
| 159 | The Arts in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance | P. L. Jacob and Walter Armstrong, illust. by Franz Kellerhoven | The Online Book Page |
| 160 | The Autobiography Of Benvenuto Cellini | Benvenuto Cellini | Goodreads |
| 161 | The Basilica of St Francis in Assisi | The National Gallery | |
| 162 | The Birth of Venus | Sarah Dunant | Goodreads |
| 163 | The Borgias | The National Gallery | |
| 164 | The Boundaries of Eros | Guido Ruggiero | The Guardian |
| 165 | The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama | A.R. Braunmuller | Goodreads |
| 166 | The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy | The National Gallery | |
| 167 | The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance | Michael Wyatt | Berkeley |
| 168 | The Companion Guide to Florence | Eve Borsook | The Guardian |
| 169 | The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose | John Donne | Goodreads |
| 170 | The Creative Will: Studies in the Philosophy and the Syntax of Aesthetics | Willard Huntington Wright | The Online Book Page |
| 171 | The Daughter of Time (Inspector Alan Grant, #5) | Josephine Tey | Goodreads |
| 172 | The Duchess of Malfi | John Webster | Goodreads |
| 173 | The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Life of the Society | A.L. Rowse | Goodreads |
| 174 | The Elizabethan World Picture | Eustace Mandeville Wetenhall Tillyard | Goodreads |
| 175 | The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History | Norma Broude; Mary D. Garrard | Questia |
| 176 | The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance: How Brunelleschi and Ghiberti Changed the Art World | Paul Robert Walker | Goodreads |
| 177 | The Fifteenth Century Italian Paintings: Volume I | National Gallery | |
| 178 | The First Folio of Shakespeare | Peter W.M. Blayney | Goodreads |
| 179 | The Florentine Renaissance | Vincent Cronin | Goodreads |
| 180 | The Flowering Of The Renaissance | Vincent Cronin | Goodreads |
| 181 | The Galleries of the Exposition: A Critical Review of the Paintings, Statuary and the Graphic Arts in The Palace of Fine Arts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition | Eugen Neuhaus | The Online Book Page |
| 182 | The Gunpowder Plot | Antonia Fraser | Goodreads |
| 183 | The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall | Christopher Hibbert | Goodreads |
| 184 | The Hutchinson Encyclopedia of the Renaissance | David Rundle | Questia |
| 185 | The Inferno | Dante Alighieri | The Guardian |
| 186 | The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance Artist | The National Gallery | |
| 187 | The Italian Painters of the Renaissance | Bernard Berenson | Tuscany Tours |
| 188 | The Italian Renaissance | J.H. Plumb | Goodreads |
| 189 | The Italian Renaissance, Culture and Society | Peter Burke | Daily History |
| 190 | The Italian Renaissance: The Origins of Intellectual and Artistic Change Before the Reformation | MJ Gill | Daily History |
| 191 | The Life of Elizabeth I | Alison Weir | Goodreads |
| 192 | The Longman Companion To Renaissance Europe, 1390 1530 | Stella Fletcher | Goodreads |
| 193 | The Lost Battles | The National Gallery | |
| 194 | The Lover’s Path: An Illustrated Novel | KRIS WALDHERR | NPR |
| 195 | The Making of Assisi | Yale Books Blog | |
| 196 | The Marlowe Conspiracy | M.G. Scarsbrook | Goodreads |
| 197 | The Medici Letters: The Secret Origins of the Renaissance | Taylor Buck | Goodreads |
| 198 | The Merchant of Prato | Iris Origo | The Guardian |
| 199 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Renaissance in Italy and Spain | The Online Book Page | |
| 200 | The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Renaissance in the North | The Online Book Page | |
| 201 | The Miraculous Image in Renaissance Florence | Yale Books Blog | |
| 202 | The Mirror of the Gods: Classical Mythology in Renaissance Art | The National Gallery | |
| 203 | The Mysteryes of Nature and Art | John Bate | The Online Book Page |
| 204 | The Nature of Conservation: A Race Against Time | Philip R. Ward | The Online Book Page |
| 205 | The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume 1: The Renaissance, 1493-1520 | G.R. Potter | Goodreads |
| 206 | The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age | Frances A. Yates | Goodreads |
| 207 | The Oxford Classical Dictionary | Simon Hornblower | Berkeley |
| 208 | The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion | Simon Price | Berkeley |
| 209 | The Oxford Dictionary Of The Renaissance | Gordon Campbell | Goodreads |
| 210 | The Practice of Persuasion: Paradox and Power in Art History | Keith Moxey | Questia |
| 211 | The Princes in the Tower | Alison Weir | Goodreads |
| 212 | The Printing Press as an Agent of Change | Elizabeth Eisenstein | Five Books |
| 213 | The Reformation (The Story of Civilization, #6) | Will Durant | Goodreads |
| 214 | The Renaissance (The Story of Civilization, #5) | Will Durant | Goodreads |
| 215 | The Renaissance Artist at Work: From Pisano to Titian | Bruce Cole | Questia |
| 216 | The Renaissance Bazaar: From the Silk Road to Michelangelo | Jerry Brotton | Goodreads |
| 217 | The Renaissance Complete | The National Gallery | |
| 218 | The Renaissance in Italy: A Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento | Guido Ruggiero | Daily History |
| 219 | The Renaissance in Rome | The National Gallery | |
| 220 | The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry | Walter Pater | Tuscany Tours |
| 221 | The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici | Christopher Hibbert | The Guardian |
| 222 | The Riverside Shakespeare | William Shakespeare | Goodreads |
| 223 | The Sacred Image in the Age of Art | The National Gallery | |
| 224 | The Sanity of Art: An Exposure of the Current Nonsense about Artists being Degenerate | Bernard Shaw | The Online Book Page |
| 225 | The Sensory World of Italian Renaissance Art | The National Gallery | |
| 226 | The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King | Princess Michael of Kent | Goodreads |
| 227 | The Shakespearean Stage, 1574-1642 | Andrew Gurr | Goodreads |
| 228 | The Six Wives of Henry VIII | Alison Weir | Goodreads |
| 229 | The Sixteen Pleasures | ROBERT HELLENGA | NPR |
| 230 | The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60 | The National Gallery | |
| 231 | The Stones of Florence | Mary McCarthy | Tuscany Tours |
| 232 | The Tigress of Forlì: Renaissance Italy’s Most Courageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario Sforza de Medici | Elizabeth Lev | Goodreads |
| 233 | The Two Paths | John Ruskin | The Online Book Page |
| 234 | The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success , | Stark, Rodney, | Daily History |
| 235 | The Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius Of The Golden Age | Christopher Hibbert | Goodreads |
| 236 | The Waning of the Middle Ages | Johan Huizinga | Goodreads |
| 237 | The Weaker Vessel | Antonia Fraser | Goodreads |
| 238 | The Wilton Diptych | Yale Books Blog | |
| 239 | The Wives of Henry VIII | Antonia Fraser | Goodreads |
| 240 | Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice | The National Gallery | |
| 241 | Titian: His Life | Sheila Hale | The Daily Beast |
| 242 | Utopia | Thomas More | Goodreads |
| 243 | Viewing Renaissance Art | The National Gallery | |
| 244 | Virgins of Venice | Mary Laven | The Guardian |
| 245 | Visions of Paradise | Yale Books Blog | |
| 246 | Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad: With Tales and Miscellanies Now First Collected, and a New Ed. of the “Diary of an Ennuyée” | Mrs. Jameson | The Online Book Page |
| 247 | War in Korea | Robert Leckie | Goodreads |
| 248 | What Did the Renaissance Patron Buy? | Gilbert, Creighton E | Questia |
| 249 | Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare | Stephen Greenblatt | Goodreads |
| 250 | Women in the Age of Shakespeare | Theresa D. Kemp | Goodreads |
| 251 | Women of the Renaissance | Margaret L. King | Goodreads |
| 252 | Women’s Roles in the Renaissance | Kari Boyd McBride | Goodreads |
| 253 | World So Wide | Sinclair Lewis | The Online Book Page |
| 254 | Worldly Goods | Lisa Jardine | Five Books |
The Best Italian Renaissance & Art Book Lists
| Source | Article |
| Berkeley | Introduction to Italian Renaissance Art / The Italian Renaissance: Finding Books & Reference Sources |
| Daily History | Top 10 Books on the origins of the Italian Renaissance |
| Everything But The House | Books on Renaissance Art |
| Five Books | Jerry Brotton recommends the best books on The Renaissance |
| Goodreads | Best Books on the Renaissance |
| National Gallery | Italian Art Books |
| NPR | Three Books To Take You Back To The Renaissance |
| Questia | Renaissance art and architecture |
| The Daily Beast | Ross King’s Italian Renaissance Book Bag |
| The Guardian | Sarah Dunant’s top 10 books on the Renaissance |
| The National Gallery | Italian Renaissance Art Books |
| The Online Book Page | Art, Renaissance |
| Tuscany Tours | Best Renaissance Art Books |
| Yale Books Blog | MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE ART BOOKS ROUND-UP |
