Anthony Blunt: Artistic Theory in Italy,
1450-1600, Oxford University Press, 1975.
Subject matter:Artistic theories of Alberti, Leonardo and Michelangelo.
Influence of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation (Council of Trent).
(Anthony Blunt [1907-83] was not only a well-known British art historian,
but also a Soviet spy
E.H. Gombrich: Symbolic Images, Phaidon,
1978.
Subject matter: Information on Botticelli and his time, Neoplatonists,
symbolism in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura, and on other documents
of the time.
Erwin Panofsky: Studies in Iconology,
Harper and Row, 1962.
Subject matter: Discussions on the Platonic universe, on Neoplatonist philosophers
of the 15th and 16th centuries, and on Michelangelo's inspirations and
technique.
J.H. Plumb: Penguin Book of the Renaissance,
Penguin 1964.
Subject matter: General overview of the time and place: early Renaissance,
Florence.
Jean Seznec: The Survival of the Pagan
Gods, Princeton University Press, 1972.
Subject matter: This traces the mythological interpretations put into Classical
myths from early Christian times to the Renaissance and beyond.
Giorgio Vasari: Lives of the Artists,
Penguin, 1976.
Subject matter: Biographies of the artists discussed.
Heinrich Wolfflin: The Art of the Italian
Renaissance, Schocken, 1964.
Subject matter: Details of the works of art discussed.