Filled with lush illustrations, Printed Renaissance explores the relationship between art writing and graphic reproduction, books, and prints in Italy between 1500–1800. Just as with reprints of texts, enterprising publishers retouched and reprinted copperplates and woodblocks for later collectors—demonstrating both a market interest in art of the past and a more broadly developing consciousness of a history of art. 

Opening Lecture for Printed Renaissance (55 minutes)

How do we remember the arts of the Italian Renaissance? Why have we become intimately familiar with the names and works of such creative figures as Raphael and Michelangelo? Since the late 1400s, the new medium of printmaking fundamentally changed the way artistic images multiplied and circulated in European society. Prints that copy famous paintings were repeatedly made, sold, and collected through the centuries. Yuefeng Wu, graduate student curator of Printed Renaissance, shows how the practice of print reproduction shaped and created the history of Renaissance painting in this opening lecture.