Melissa Calaresu

Victoria Avery

The pineapple’s ‘discovery’ by European colonisers in the late fifteenth century and its remarkable global trajectory – from an early modern object of rarity, desire, and horticultural innovation to a cheap, canned consumable and fair-trade logo today – is a story of modern globalisation. The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification is a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary volume intended to provoke timely debate and generate radical rethinking of an overly familiar fruit with associations from luxury to kitsch. It deliberately problematizes the pineapple by investigating understudied tensions between its representational power and the historical and political contexts of its worldwide production and consumption. This connects the global and local at the heart of contemporary debates about the nature and origins of our food. It will have cross-disciplinary appeal for scholars of politics, economics, history, plant sciences, food, and material culture as well as for broader audiences interested in food, gardening, the environment, and visual arts.

Re-presenting a Global Fruit

The Pineapple from Domestication to Commodification

This book tells, for the first time, the story of bronze in Renaissance Venice. Previously unpublished documents provide an invaluable resource for the study of bronze objects and the people who commissioned and made them. The numerous illustrations include recently-restored works of art, and unpublished historical photographs.

The Story of Bronze in Venice, 1350-1650

Vulcan's Forge in Venus' City

Dr Melissa Calaresu

This book explores the significance of beautiful and engaging objects - chosen, acquired, personalised and treasured - to the people who once owned them. With over 300 works discussed, it takes us on a dazzling visual adventure through the decorative arts, from Renaissance luxuries wrought in glass, bronze and maiolica to the elaborate tablewares and personal adornments available to shoppers in the Age of Enlightenment. En route the authors consider the impact of global trade on European habits and expectations: the glamour of the Eastern exotic, the ubiquity of New World products like chocolate and sugar, and the obsession with Chinoiserie decoration. They ask what decorative objects meant to their owners before the age of industrial mass production, and explore how technological innovation and the proliferation of goods from the sixteenth century onwards transformed the attitude of Europeans to their personal possessions. Illustrated throughout with superb colour photographs, many unfamiliar and hitherto unseen gems of the Fitzwilliam Museum's Applied Arts collection are here published for the first time.

From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

Treasured Possessions

Fitzwilliam Museum

Jo Dillon

In the introductory essay to the catalogue of bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum 'Dr. Avery provides the first detailed account of Boscawen himself, of the loans and gifts he made to the Museum during his lifetime and his sister's extraordinarily generous bequest.' (Foreword)

Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

This book, the first comprehensive interdisciplinary account of Michelangelo's work as a sculptor in bronze, is the outcome of extensive original research undertaken over several years by academics at the University of Cambridge together with a team of international experts, directed by Dr Victoria Avery, a leading authority on the history, art and technology of bronze casting in Renaissance Italy. The catalyst for this innovative project was the attribution to Michelangelo of the Rothschild bronzes – two extraordinary bronze groups of nude men on fantastical panthers – prior to their display at the Fitzwilliam Museum in 2015. First proposed by the distinguished Michelangelo scholar Professor Paul Joannides and validated by the wide-ranging research published here, the attribution to Michelangelo has now gained widespread acceptance. As part of this pioneering project, Professor Peter Abrahams, the eminent clinical anatomist specialising in dissection, has carried out the first ever in-depth scientific analysis of the anatomy of Michelangelo's nude figures. Abrahams' findings have uncovered hitherto unrecognised features of Michelangelo's unparalleled mastery of the structure and workings of the human body that give the gesture and the motion of his figures their unique expressive force. Enigmatic and visually-striking masterpieces, the Rothschild bronzes are the focus of this multi-authored, interdisciplinary volume that contains ground-breaking contributions by leading experts in the fields of art history, anatomy, conservation science, bronze casting and the history of collecting.

Sculptor in Bronze

Michelangelo

Food defines us as individuals, communities, and nations - we are what we eat and, equally, what we don't eat. When, where, why, how and with whom we eat are crucial to our identity. Feast and Fast presents novel approaches to understanding the history and culture of food and eating in early modern Europe. This richly illustrated book will showcase hidden and newly-conserved treasures from the Fitzwilliam Museum and other collections in and around Cambridge. It will tease out many contemporary and controversial issues - such as the origins of food and food security, overconsumption in times of austerity, and our relationship with animals and nature – through short research-led entries by some of the world's leading cultural and food historians. Feast and Fast explores food-related objects, images, and texts from the past in innovative ways and encourages us to rethink our evolving relationship with food.

Victoria Avery

Books

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