Research Guides: Renaissance Time: Finding Background Information

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Emery Shriver
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Art Historical Background

Oxford Art Online This link opens in a new window
The go-to resource to find basic reference-type information about an artist. Use it as an alternative to Wikipedia – which can be a perfectly fine source for some things but in general tends to be less accurate, reliable, and complete than a scholarly published source – to learn about the career and works of the artist in question. A good reference source such as OAO can function as a supplement to monographic books, or books that cover the career and works of a single artist, in providing overview and background information that gives you a context, or a contour, within which to place what you find in the more in-depth sources.

IMPORTANT: at the end of the biographical entries you will find bibliographies of scholarly works considered standard. Consulting these bibliographies is a great way to get an overview of important scholarship and to find the best monographic works (this can be useful because, while there may be several monographs on a given artist, they are not all equal in terms of quality).

Smarthistory: Europe1300-1800
Contains conversational videos and essays covering art and cultural heritage.
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History pairs essays and works of art with chronologies, telling the story of art and global culture through the Museum’s collection.
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The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History presents a thematic, chronological, and geographical exploration of global art history through The Met collection. Authored by The Met’s experts, the digital publication is a reference, research, and teaching tool conceived for students and scholars of art history. The Timeline currently comprises more than 1,000 essays, 8,000 works of art, 300 chronologies, and 3,700 keywords. It is regularly updated and enriched to provide new scholarship and insights on The Met collection.

The Timeline is structured with four components. Essays focus on specific themes in art history, including artistic movements and periods, archaeological sites, empires and civilizations, recurrent themes and concepts, media, and artists. Works of Art celebrate human creativity from around the world and from all eras, and are contextualized chronologically, geographically, and thematically. Chronologies provide a linear outline of art history by geographical region. Each chronology includes up to ten representative works of art, a timeline, an overview, and key events. Keywords—categorized by art movement and style, artists and makers, geography (present-day nation states and historical regions), time period, material and technique, object, and subject matter—further connect chronologies, essays, and works of art.

Other Reference Sources

Oxford Reference This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and companions published by Oxford University Press. A good place to start a research project.

Companions, Handbooks, and Histories

Companions, handbooks, and the Cambridge Histories are great resources for overviews of the scholarship on a person, topic, or time period. Below are some recommended ones for this course. To find additional resources like these, search the library catalog using keywords such as companion, handbook, or Cambridge History combined with an artist's name or a broad topic.

A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art
A collection of original, in-depth essays from art experts that address various aspects of European visual arts produced from circa 1300 to 1700. Includes illustrations as well as links to images not included in the book.
The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy
Explores the ways in which the science, religion, and politics of the period reflect and are reflected in its philosophical life, and it emphasize the dynamism and pluralism of a period which saw both new perspectives and enduring contributions to the history of philosophy. Includes bibliographical references and index.
The Cambridge Companion to the Italian Renaissance
Presents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to the period. Chapters are organized around axes of humanism, historiography, and cultural production, and cover a wide variety of areas including literature, science, music, religion, technology, artistic production, and economics. Includes bibliographical references and index.
The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism
Provides a comprehensive introduction to the humanism movement in the culture of early modern Europe. Contains biographical index and guide for further reading.
The Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 4, Christianity in Western Europe, C. 1100-C. 1500
Explores the wide range of institutions, practices and experiences associated with the life of European Christians in the later middle ages. Provides accessible accounts of these complex historical processes and entices the reader towards further enquiry.