Golden Glow. Gold and Silver Altarpieces in Medieval Venetia - Stefania Gerevini;Giosuè Fabiano;Andrew Hopkins

In medieval and early modern Venice, churches gleamed with the brilliance of gold and silver altarpieces and altar frontals. Large-scale, sumptuous, and visually ingenious, these altarpieces functioned as dramatic "viewing machines", dominating the architectural space and framing the liturgy. The essays in this volume bring those awe-inspiring and long-neglected objects back to light, exposing their significance as the forgotten heart of Venice’s visual and religious landscape, and situating them within their broader Adriatic and Mediterranean contexts. In doing so, this volume contributes to key art-historical debates about materiality and the "object archive"; fragmentation and the afterlives of artworks; the interactions between space and liturgy; visuality, and the history of the senses.

In medieval and early modern Venice, churches gleamed with the brilliance of gold and silver altarpieces and altar frontals. Large-scale, sumptuous, and visually ingenious, these altarpieces functioned as dramatic "viewing machines", dominating the architectural space and framing the liturgy. The essays in this volume bring those awe-inspiring and long-neglected objects back to light, exposing their significance as the forgotten heart of Venice’s visual and religious landscape, and situating them within their broader Adriatic and Mediterranean contexts. In doing so, this volume contributes to key art-historical debates about materiality and the "object archive"; fragmentation and the afterlives of artworks; the interactions between space and liturgy; visuality, and the history of the senses.