The Mediterranean trade in luxury goods from the East made a strong and lasting impression on Italian artistic taste and production during the early Renaissance. This opulently illustrated book describes and illustrates the fascinating ways that imported art objects inspired improvements and new variety in Italian decorative arts. From Italian textiles featuring Islamic and Asian motifs to ceramics and glassware that reflected Syrian techniques and ornamental concepts, this book gives an extraordinary view of the influence of imported Oriental goods in Italy over three crucial centuries of artistic development.

Rosamond Mack traces Italy's emerging decorative arts tradition as she discusses textiles, ceramics, glass, bookbinding, and metalwork; she also considers how Italian painting reflects trans-Mediterranean trade and travel. Painters represented carpets and ceramics from the East in their works, as well as textiles with bands of writing replicating or suggesting Arabic script, negotiating cultural differences in their borrowings. These paintings show how Islamic motifs were absorbed into Christian contexts.

Beginning in the 1300s and 1400s, the works of Italian craftsmen inspired by luxury goods from Islamic and Asian countries gradually began to compete with those brought to Europe in huge quantities on Italian merchant ships. Yet even after their own versions surpassed the quality of some of the imported goods, Italians continued to collect, imitate, and adapt objects from the Ottoman empire and China. As Mack discusses these important influences, she provides useful summaries of the history of Renaissance decorative arts and presents a balanced and carefully researched view of the controversial topic of East-West artistic exchange.

This uniquely comprehensive study offers an intriguing look at the effects of exchange in Renaissance material culture, shedding new light on the development of the Italian Renaissance as a whole. No other source provides so rich and inclusive a synthesis of the period's decorative arts.

Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Trade, Travel and Diplomacy
2. Patterned Silks
3. Oriental Script in Italian Paintings
4. Carpets
5. Ceramics
6. Glass
7. Bookbinding and Lacquer
8. Inlaid Brass
9. The Pictorial Arts
10. From Bazaar to Piazza and Back

Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Picture Credits
Index

Rosamond E. Mack is an independent scholar who received a doctorate in Renaissance art from Harvard University. She has lived in the Middle East and has traveled extensively in the countries whose art figures in this book.

"This is a book for which there is no published counterpart, and it is likely to have considerable appeal to students, collectors, and museum curators working on European or Islamic decorative arts. There have been many articles on the subjects covered by this book, but no attempt to pull so much diverse material together into a single publication."—Julian Raby, author of Venice, Dürer, and the Oriental Mode

"Mack's imaginatively researched and lively text explores the acquisition and interpretation of Islamic works of art in Renaissance Italy, in media such as ceramics, glass, and textiles. The book's emphasis is strongly visual; it is richly illustrated with objects of stunning design and workmanship from an impressive range of museum collections. The book will serve as a source of enduring value for the specialist, just as it will delight the avid museum-goer."—Deborah Howard, author of Venice and the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture 1100-1500

"Mack's survey of luxury objects and techniques in the late Middle Ages and especially during the Renaissance is excellently researched, well written, learned and interesting at the same time. . . . The scholarship is superior, in fact quite amazing, if one considers the variety of topics involved, the illustrations plentiful but essential."—Oleg Grabar, author of The Shape of the Holy: Early Islamic Jerusalem

"This manuscript traces the influence of oriental motifs, imagery and craftsmanship on Italian artists and craftsmen, offering a valuable overview of a series of complex cultural and aesthetic interchanges. I found the discussion illuminating, a fascinating read on the whole."—Patricia Fortini Brown, author of Venice and Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past