Books

2022

Italian Renaissance Painting: From Giotto to Michelangelo Paperback - 10 May 2022

This overview tells the story of painting in Italy from the frescoes created at Assisi in the 1280s (Trecento), through the Quattrocento (1400s) to the High Renaissance and ending with Michelangelo's last works up to 1564. Information is included about the religious, social and economic context of the period, as well as considering the main trends, developments and individual artists - and the concept of rebirth.

2019

Anne Boleyn

Pitkin - publication date June 2019

Anne Boleyn - a scheming, ambitious strumpet, or the tragic and innocent victim of court politics and events? Can Anne Boleyn be regarded as one of the most highly-educated and forward-thinking of English queens, with a passion for the new learning and reform of the sixteenth century? Or was she only interested in having a good time and enjoying court life?

2017

Sir Thomas Gresham and his Vision for Gresham College

Sir Thomas Gresham (1619-79) became one of the most powerful and influential courtiers of the 16th century. As a financial agent to four Tudor monarchs, builder of the Royal Exchange, and public benefactor, Gresham kept his head down and kept it on, eventually founding London's first higher education institution - Gresham College.

2014

Michelangelo, Copernicus and the Sistine Chapel: The Last Judgment Decoded

Lambert Academic Publishing: Saarbrucken, Germany

A concise, summarised version of the full work (2000)

2000

Sun-symbolism and Cosmology in Michelangelo's Last Judgment

Truman State University Press.

Copernicus' theory of the sun-centred universe is argued as a key underlying theme in Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. The design, centred on the depiction of Christ as an Apollonian 'sun-god', is argued as being influenced by Copernicus's theory of heliocentricity.

A cosmological interpretation of Michelangelo's Last Judgment proposes new sources for the circular design of the fresco around a central Apollonian Sun-Christ endquote

Selected

BOOKS

Dr Valerie Shrimplin