The Culture of the High Renaissance: Ancients and Moderns in Sixteenth-Century Rome

Between 1480 and 1520, a concentration of talented artists, including Melozzo da Forlì, Bramante, Pinturicchio, Raphael, and Michelangelo, arrived in Rome and produced some of the most enduring works of art ever created. This period, now called the High Renaissance, is generally considered to be one of the high points of Western civilisation. How did it come about, and what were the forces that converged to spark such an explosion of creative activity? In this study, Ingrid Rowland examines...