Henri Focillon

"Celebrated goldsmith and sculptor of the Italian Renaissance, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71) fits the conventional image of a Renaissance man: a skillful virtuoso and courtier; an artist who worked in marble, bronze, and gold; a writer and poet. However, in his life and literary oeuvre, the notorious artist, rogue, and sodomite aligned himself with the transgressive and oppositional voices of his day. This book, the first biographical study of Cellini available in English, uses the methodologies of New Historicism, social history, and gender and sexuality studies to situate the artist and his works in relation to a series of early modern cultural discourses and practices, including sodomy, law, honor, magic, and masculinity."--Jacket.

In this text, Focillon insists that art and its meanings are an inherently dynamic system and that the history of art is one of instabilities, fluctuations and discontinuities. Artworks are never static empirical entities or pure optical presences but rather the virtual traces of a ceaseless process of becoming.

The present work is more than a history of Western medieval art: it is an aesthetic exploration into the development of medieval style, particularly as it is expressed itself in architecture and architectural decoration. The illustrations which accompany the text are designed to provide a visual complement to the author's instructive analyses and stimulating ideas. -- From publisher's description.

Presents what life was like in the year 1000 for an Englishman.