Acknowledgements

Humfrey, Peter

Save Cite Share

Free

Acknowledgements

Peter Humfrey

The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice

~~IT IS NOW MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS since I first became involved with Venetian altarpieces, and during that time I have benefited from the help and advice of many friends and colleagues. I recall with particular gratitude conversations held in the earlier stages of my research with Howard Burns, the late Felton Gibbons, Paul Hills, Julia...

Author

Peter Humfrey

PublisherYale University Press

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20372

Acknowledgements

It is now more than twenty years since I first became involved with Venetian altarpieces, and during that time I have benefited from the help and advice of many friends and colleagues. I recall with particular gratitude conversations held in the earlier stages of my research with Howard Burns, the late Felton Gibbons, Paul Hills, Julia Keydel, the late Ulrich Middeldorf, Staale Sinding-Larsen, Janet Smith, Carolyn Wilson, and Wolfgang Wolters. Fortunately, the actual writing of this book has occupied only a relatively small part of this time, thanks above all to the opportunities for concentrated effort provided by a term of membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1988, and by two terms as fellow at the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti, Florence, in 1987 and 1991. I am grateful to Irving Lavin of the School of Historical Studies at Princeton, and to Louise George Clubb and Walter Kaiser, successive directors of I Tatti, and to all the permanent members of their staff, for their assistance and hospitality. As well as providing the time and facilities for study, both institutions offered the highly stimulating companionship of fellow-researchers. At Princeton I profited in particular from the presence of Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Debra Pincus, Miri Rubin and Christine Smith; at I Tatti, from that of Paul Barolsky, Fabio Bisogni, Eve Borsook, Marc Deramaix and Julian Kliemann. In 1986 I was also privileged to spend a few weeks as Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. My thanks to Henry Millon, Dean, and Marianna Shreve Simpson, Associate Dean, of the Center, and to Beverly Louise Brown, David Alan Brown and Sydney Freedberg of the National Gallery.

I am grateful to Martin Kemp and John Frew, successive chairmen of the Department of Art History in the University of St Andrews, for making it possible for me to take the three terms of absence from my normal teaching duties. Martin Kemp has also been warmly supportive of my research over a number of years, as have been Andrew Martindale, the late Giles Robertson, and David Rosand.

Generous financial support has come, as well as from the Institute for Advanced Study and Villa I Tatti, from the Leverhulme Trust, the British Academy, the Carnegie Trust, the Marc Fitch Fund, the British School at Rome, and the University of St Andrews Research Fund in Arts and Divinity. Grants from these various bodies have enabled me, among other things, to make a number of research visits to Italy, including several to Venice. The following members of Italian gallery staff have been particularly courteous in facilitating my study of individual altarpieces: Rosalba D’Amico (Soprintendenza alle Gallerie, Bologna), Fabrizio Mancinelli (Pinacoteca Vaticana), Luigi Sante Savio and Sandro Sponza (Soprintendenza alle Gallerie, Venice).

Other colleagues and friends who have kindly assisted me with valuable information and advice include: Patricia Fortini Brown, Renato Cevese, Jill Dunkerton, Creighton Gilbert, Alexander Kader, Patricia Meilman, Antonio Niero, Sir John Pope-Hennessy, Victoria Primhak, Eliot Rowlands, Janice Shell, Joachim Strupp, and Anchise Tempestini.

I owe very special debts to three persons in particular. Deborah Howard and Wendy Stedman Sheard both read several chapters of the book at an early stage, and provided abundant and well-aimed advice about how to improve them. I have also had numerous long and immensely rewarding discussions with both Wendy Sheard and Mauro Lucco, about all manner of things relating to Venetian altarpieces. As it happens, these three persons are among today’s leading scholars in the respective fields of Venetian Renaissance architecture, sculpture and painting. But the engagement of all three with the city and art of Venice goes far beyond their respective speciality, and I have gained immeasurably from the breadth of their knowledge, as well as from their generosity in sharing it.

The sometimes difficult and frustrating task of acquiring photographs was made considerably lighter and more agreeable by the unfailing courtesy of Francesco Turio Böhm, and the staff of Osvaldo Böhm in Venice. I also received welcome help from Stephen Eddy, Christa Gardner von Teuffel and Ralph Lieberman, and in particular again, from Mauro Lucco. My unwieldy text was expertly sub-edited by Susan Haskins; and at Yale University Press I was fortunate to have the collaboration of Gillian Malpass, whose sympathy with the project combined with a highly professional rigour made her the ideal editor.

My final acknowledgement of gratitude is to my family: to my wife, Margaret, and to our sons Nicholas and Joseph. They have had to tolerate much over the years in the name of Venetian altarpieces, and my greatest debt is to them. The very least I can do in return is to dedicate this book to them, with love.

St Andrews, December 1991

Previous chapter Next chapter

Base text size -

Chapter images ()