Dizionario delle arti minori
The minor arts journey starting from the Middle Ages, through the blooming of Renaissance, up to the great seventeenth and eighteenth century seasons
The dictionary analyzes materials and production techniques and it is introduced by two prolusions to the theme. Liana Castelfranchi dedicates ample space to the theoretical debate relating to terminology and the critical fortune of the minor arts and focuses her investigation on the absolute masterpieces produced by the \’medieval workshop\’. Cinzia Piglione instead proposes a different approach to the minor arts, aimed at capturing the dense exchanges between the various artistic techniques, choosing the most complex production centers of the Italian panorama between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as privileged observers.
The Dictionary offers an exhaustive treatment of a representative sample of minor arts; ample space is given to textiles (tapestries, embroidery, fabrics) and collectibles. The remaining sectors concern the miniature, the working of metals and hard stones (goldsmith, enamel, engraving, seal and glyptics), the working of ceramic, glass, ivory, leather and marquetry.
Liana Castelfranchi taught History of Medieval Art at the University of Verona and at the University of Milan. She mainly dedicated her studies to the field of painting of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with particular attention to the phenomena of artistic circulation and the relationship between Italian and French art. For Jaca Book she was curator of the ‘History of European Art’ collection and author of numerous publications
