New Apelleses and New Apollos

This book breaks new ground by illuminating the key role of verse-writing as a cultural strategy on the part of Italian Renaissance artists. It does so by undertaking a wide-ranging study of poems by painters, sculptors, architects, and goldsmiths who were active in Florence under Cosimo I and Francesco I de’ Medici　– a　milieu in which many practitioners of the visual arts　appropriated the literary medium to address issues related to their primary professions.

New Apelleses, and New Apollos　intervenes in the burgeoning scholarly discourse on the intellectual life of artists in early　modern Italy, revealing how poetry often provides fresh insights into　art-theoretical debates, patronage questions, workshop cultures, issues of professional　identity, and networks of personal relations.