Publications

Paperback: 286 pages Distributor: Syracuse University Press (Fall 2009)
ISBN: 8895250044 1

Sandro Botticelli and Herbert Horne: New Research

Edited by Rab Hatfield

Sandro Botticelli and Herbert Horne: New Research, edited by Rab Hatfield, contains six essays based on papers given at a conference in Florence in October 2008 to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Herbert Horne’s ground-breaking monograph on Botticelli. The volume opens with essays by Rab Hatfield and Barbara Deimling, both of whom address the fundamental question of the identities of figures in major Botticelli works. In the third essay, Louis Waldman presents a contract he discovered recently, which is the only known contract for a work by Botticelli. Jonathan Nelson’s essay explores various Botticelli works in search of answers to a crucial question about attribution: are we justified in attributing a work to the maestro if it was wholly or partly executed by assistants in his workshop? Caroline Elam then shifts the focus from the artist to the critic; her essay explores the remarkable life and personality of Herbert Horne. In the final essay, Antonella Francini presents and analyzes a fascinating poem about Botticelli by Horne, which she discovered recently. The volume as a whole throws new light on a great painter and one of his most sensitive and innovative interpreters.