Reforming Art in Renaissance Venice

'I have been waiting for an art historian to write this book. It is a well-considered, balanced, and evidence-based examination of the relationships between religious images and the Counter-Reformation in Venice.' Louisa Matthew, Union College 'In this meticulously researched and eloquently argued book, Lillywhite provides an unprecedentedly detailed account of the relationship between the religious upheavals of the sixteenth century and Venetian art of the period. She shows that, so far from being a repressive force, as is often supposed, the post-Tridentine church stimulated a fresh creativity among leading Venetian painters such as Tintoretto, Veronese, and Palma Giovane. Among the many responses to new religious needs analysed by the author were the invention of a range of new iconographies, the proliferation of elaborate tabernacles of the Sacrament, and the massive increase in the pictorial decoration of the city's churches and confraternities. This is contextual art history at its very best.' Peter Humfrey, Emeritus Professor, University of St Andrews 'I have been waiting for an art historian to write this book. It is a well-considered, balanced, and evidence-based examination of the relationships between religious images and the Counter-Reformation in Venice.' Louisa C. Matthew, Professor of Art History, Union College 'This book makes a fine revisionist contribution to our understanding of the impact of religious reform on Venetian art in the later sixteenth century. Lillywhite's arguments are underpinned by superb and wide-ranging scholarship, including new archival discoveries. Her wide-ranging text is enlivened by many penetrating and original observations which very effectively challenge the standard ideas about the negative impact of the so-called “Counter-Reformation” on Venetian artistic culture. In this book, we learn that it was the artists themselves who possessed the greatest agency in Venetian artistic culture, developing imaginative and innovative responses to the changing religious ideas of the period. Rather than rehearsing again the well-worn scholarly clichés about the top-down enforcement of theological ideas in the period, Lillywhite persuasively argues that the Catholic Church, and its famous decrees offered at the Council of Trent, did not, in fact, establish close control over artistic culture in the period.' Tom Nichols, Reader, University of Glasgow