Renaissance Resources

The database is a collection of treatises on art and architecture printed and published between 1470 to 1775. It is structured around the two Italian editions of Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. An editorial advisory board selected the authors for inclusion in Art Theorists of the Italian Renaissance. First or early editions have been preferred and translations are from the publication period. There are two exceptions to this policy for English translations. A 1912-1914 translation of Vasari's Lives and a 1907 translation of the introductory section On Technique are included because no reliable contemporary translations exist. The entire text of each work is included and the complete database contains approximately 4,000 images. Any accompanying text written by the original author and forming an integral part of the work, such as footnotes, sidenotes and endnotes, is also generally included. Editorial matter from outside the period is usually omitted.

The Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance is an interdisciplinary research project centering on the classical tradition, a focus of Renaissance studies. The core of the project is the database registering antique monuments known in the Renaissance together with the related Renaissance documents in form of texts and images.
The collection of data has been extended by the antique monuments known to Johann Joachim Winckelmann and his contemporaries (Corpus Winckelmann) as well as the reception and adaption of antique art of the Middle Ages (Corpus Medii Aevi) in cooperation with research projects dedicated to the ‘Nachleben’ of Antiquity. The project regularly issues publications

The Digital Cicognara Library is an international initiative to recreate in digital form the remarkable private book collection of Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767–1834). Though assembled in the Romantic era, Cicognara’s collection of some five thousand early imprints stands as an important scholarly resource for the literature of art and archaeology. Cicognara’s famous, two-volume inventory of his library, the Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità, published in 1821 and often reprinted, remains an essential tool for scholars and bibliophiles.

The full Digital Cicognara Library is being built by contributing partners. The site presents the full text of the Catalogo integrated with digital images and full text of every title in the corpus, including black-and-white facsimiles of the original volumes in the Vatican, one or more high-resolution, color facsimiles of unique copies from partner libraries, and thorough bibliographic information. Thanks to generous support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and partner institutions, the Digital Cicognara Library will be an open-access resource.

An Italian-language database of Vasari's writings, including his two editions of the Lives of the Artists.

A project of the Center for Advanced Study of the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the searchable database includes a complete transcription of every extant notarial record of the period from the Archivio di Stato di Roma identified by the project team, as well as a digital images of the original documents. The site also features artist bibliographies and a database of images associated with the early history of the Accademia di San Luca and its members during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Digital library of French architecture books from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. The site includes a comprehensive catalogue of early modern architectural texts (including all of the editions!) with biographies of the authors, summaries of their works, and links to digital full texts.

Excellent range of resources on early printed books, manuscripts, maps, and archival documents conserved at the British Library.

This database includes backlist titles from the National Gallery of Art publication archives to browse or download.

MetPublications is a portal to The Met's comprehensive publishing program with over 1,500 titles, including books, online publications, and Bulletins and Journals from the last five decades, to read, download, and/or search for free.

A good resource for pan-European early modern architecture with bibliographies, links to relevant e-books, and it’s less Italian-centric than many other resources. There is also information about conferences, fellowships, current research, etc.