Lilian Armstrong All Books #5 Petrarch sku-222754121

Lilian Armstrong's All Books listing sku-222754121 is a paperback in Warburg Institute Studies & Texts, Series #5. It examines twenty surviving illuminated copies of Felice Feliciano's edition of Petrarch's De viris illustribus (On Famous Men). Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca, 1304-1374) spent years writing this account of ancient Roman military heroes but left it unfinished. His colleague Lombardo della Seta completed it by 1379, and an Italian translation followed within a decade. Feliciano (1433–1479/1480) printed the Libro degli uomini famosi in Poiano, outside Verona, in 1476. Each Life has an interlace woodcut border on a page with no printed image inside it. The book studies Renaissance interest in the classical past, traditions of depicting famous men, the technical difficulties of woodcut illustration and the reception of the 1476 edition. In two copies, painted heroes fill the borders and provide evidence for reconstructing lost frescoes of famous men painted near the end of Petrarch's life in the Carrara palace in Padua. Illumination in other copies is attributed to miniaturists working in Venice, Verona, Ferrara, Florence, Rome and elsewhere, suggesting Feliciano marketed the edition widely. Thirty-two colour plates and over ninety black-and-white figures document the copies.