Guido Rebecchini

Andrea Mantegna painted The Triumphs of Caesar between the mid-1480s and 1506. The series of nine canvases reconstructs the magnificent procession held in 46 bc celebrating the victories of the Roman general – and later dictator – Julius Caesar. This introduction to the series begins by exploring Andrea Mantegna’s career and artistic production in Mantua between 1460 and 1506. During this period, his output included altarpieces and frescoes, as well as portraits and paintings of pagan and devotional subjects. Obsessive in his attention to detail and expert in illusionistic representations of space, Mantegna transformed Mantua into a ‘modern’ avant-garde centre whose influence spread all over Italy and beyond. A second chapter focuses specifically on the Triumphs. Mantegna took on this highly ambitious project when he was working as a court painter for the ruling Gonzaga family in Mantua. He drew on ancient and contemporary writings for this powerful and sustained evocation of the classical world, incorporating imagery from Roman antiquities.Published by National Gallery Global/Distributed by Yale University Press

During his reign (1534-1549), Pope Paul III transformed Rome from a derelict town to a dignified and even triumphal city. This richly illustrated book uses mainly unpublished documentation to investigate a range of multi-media urban, architectural and artistic projects promoted by Paul III. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to deepen our knowledge of Rome's visual culture after the Sack of 1527, providing a nuanced and fresh understanding of the social, economic and political conditions underpinning the creation of celebrated masterpieces, like Michelangelo's Last Judgement or his design of the Campidoglio. This study - the first entirely dedicated to Rome during the pontificate of Paul III - re-conceptualizes the periodization of Rome's early-modern history, which is traditionally polarized between the High Renaissance and the Baroque, and establishes Paul III's reign as the hinge between these two, seemingly disconnected, periods. In addressing these topics, artworks and urban spaces are analyzed as a means to engage with themes intensely discussed in recent scholarship, such as the creation of space, the inhabited urban environment and the intersection of art, politics and propaganda.