Art and Architecture in Italy, 1250 to 1400

The period covered by this book has long been the object of intensive study. Many of the greatest names in art history have contributed, or are still contributing, to an unending stream oj books and articles. These range from magisterial surveys oj the entire field to complex investigations of the most minute details. At every level, therefore, my debt of gratitude is quite impossible to repay.

Neither the notes, which have been kept to what seems to me to be the essential minimum, nor the select bibliography, which is merely a pointer to some of the more important sources of information, can, by the very nature of things, be more than a token of what I owe to writers, many of whom have not been named.

The general shape of the book, built for the most part round biographies of the major artists, has been conditioned by my belief that this traditional format remains the most appropriate for the period in which, for the first time, artistic personalities as such are well enough documented to become appreciable in any quantity or detail. The division into architecture, sculpture, and painting, though undesirable in principle, particularly in relation to a time when the arts were notable more for their unity than for their separation, see fued to be necessary in the interests of clarity.

There appeared to be no need, however, to insist on the often unfortunate modern distinctions between major and minor or fine and applied arts, and the latter are treated without segregation at such points as seemed to be appropriate for various reasons. The internal chronological divisions at 1300 and 1350 are as arbitrary as the opening and closing dates of the book as a whole. I felt that some subdivision was desirable in order to avoid such extremes as having to discuss the architecture or sculpture of 1400 before the painting of 1230. Any alternative dividing lines seemed to be neither more convenient nor less misleading. None of the t