On Antique Painting

“As the only English translation of this significant Renaissance treatise, On Antique Painting marks a contribution not only to the field of Portuguese literature but also to the study of humanism during the Renaissance.”

—Barbara von Barghahn, George Washington University

“Alice Sedgwick Wohl’s translation of Francisco de Hollanda’s De pintura antigua reintroduces an important voice to the larger discourse on Renaissance art theory and criticism. The Portuguese visitor was an alert witness to the aesthetic discussions taking place in sixteenth-century Rome; these he recorded in a series of dialogues in which Michelangelo was a dominant participant—and the reason the dialogues themselves have received much attention in modern scholarship. The dialogues, however, constituted Book II of Hollanda’s larger project, which was intended as a defense of the nobility of the art of painting and a program for realizing that goal. In the forty-four chapters of Book I, the author addresses all the major themes in the discussion of the art, but Hollanda’s most ambitious recapitulation of Renaissance aesthetics has been relatively neglected in art-historical scholarship. This new translation and critical edition will inspire reevaluation of Hollanda and the significance of his project.”

—David Rosand, Meyer Schapiro Professor Emeritus of Art History, Columbia University

“On Antique Painting belongs to a tradition of English translations of important primary sources in Renaissance art history and theory, including Leon Battista Alberti's On Painting and Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists.”

—Maria Ruvoldt, Fordham University

“Alice Wohl’s long-awaited translation of Francisco de Hollanda’s On Antique Painting in its entirety (which includes not only the four dialogues, but the treatise!) is an excellent contribution to the distinguished Penn State series of translations of primary sources in Renaissance and Baroque art. A valuable contribution to the study of Renaissance art history, literature, theory, and many other topics of interest, including the culture of Renaissance Portugal and the classical revival of the Renaissance, this translation should renew interest in Michelangelo’s fascinating and controversial role in Hollanda’s dialogues. Introductory essays and endnotes provide the reader with a rich context for the understanding of this important work.”

—Paul Barolsky, University of Virginia

“[Alice Sedgwick Wohl] is alive both to literal sense and to the difficulties posed by usage and stylistic conventions as employed in a language written four and a half centuries ago. With Hollanda she has taken on an especially difficult task, and has succeeded with colours flying. We now have for the first time in English the whole of Hollanda’s treatise. . . . We are all indebted to Sedgwick Wohl and her collaborators for an invaluable contribution to Renaissance studies.”

—Charles Dempsey The Burlington Magazine

“The manuscript of Francisco de Hollanda’s Da pintura antigua (completed in 1548) is lost, or still to be identified. It was, however, translated into Castilian in 1563, and a copy in Portuguese was made in 1792, both probably using the same manuscript in Madrid, itself either the original or an early copy sent from Portugal to Spain. Alice Sedgwick Wohl has collated the texts of both versions in making her excellent translation from the Portuguese, occasionally following the Castilian text where ambiguities or lacunae appear in the Portuguese copy, but always noting the variant reading when she does so. She is an experienced, sensitive and reliable translator. . . . She is alive both to literal sense and to the difficulties posed by usage and stylistic conventions as employed in a language written four and a half centuries ago. With Hollanda she has taken on an especially difficult task, and has succeeded with colours flying. We now have for the first time in English the whole of Hollanda’s treatise. . . . We are all indebted to Sedgwick Wohl and her collaborators for an invaluable contribution to Renaissance studies.”

—Charles Dempsey The Burlington Magazine

“Scholars of early modern culture and the history of art owe [Wohl] thanks. That her translation is clear and elegant, painstakingly attentive to the two early manuscripts available today, and sensitive to Hollanda’s ideas and milieu substantially increases our debt to her.”

—Elena M. Cavillo CAA.Reviews