City Views in the Habsburg and Medici Courts

Download or read book City Views in the Habsburg and Medici Courts written by Ryan E. Gregg and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In City Views in the Habsburg and Medici Courts, Ryan E. Gregg relates how Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and Duke Cosimo I of Tuscany employed city view artists such as Anton van den Wyngaerde and Giovanni Stradano to aid in constructing authority. These artists produced a specific style of city view that shared affinity with Renaissance historiographic practice in its use of optical evidence and rhetorical techniques. History has tended to see city views as accurate recordings of built environments. Bringing together ancient and Renaissance texts, archival material, and fieldwork in the depicted locations, Gregg demonstrates that a close-knit school of city view artists instead manipulated settings to help persuade audiences of the truthfulness of their patrons’ official narratives.