Description: Publication-dates are carried by all plates except one (pl. [34]). One (pl. 5) carries the date 1809 Mar. 10; the others, dates in 1825 or 1826: 1825 Jan. 1 (8 pl.), Feb. 1 (5 pl.), Mar. 1 (5 pl.), May 1 (5 pl.), June 1 (6 pl.), July 1 (6 pl.), 1826 Sep. 1 (17 pl.). (Only those plates published on September 1st 1826 and one of those dated July 1 1825 (pl. 48) carry plate-numbers.) In the address 'To The Lovers Of The Fine Arts' Ottley states that it is his intention to display examples of design of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from works at Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Assisi, Perugia, Orvieto and Rome. The plates show works by an unknown artist ca. 1230, Giunta Pisano (2 plates), Greek artists ca. 1250, Niccola Pisano (3 pl.), Cimabue (3 pl.), A. Pisano, Giotto (10 pl.), P. Cavallini, Puccio Capanna (2 pl.), Tommaso di Stefano, Taddeo Gaddi (3 pl.), G. Gaddi, A. Gaddi, Orcagna, Ugolino di Prete Ilario, Uccello, L. Ghiberti (4 pl.), Donatello (2 pl.), Fra Angelico (2 pl.), Masaccio (3 pl.), Melozzo da Forli, Benozzo Gozzoli (4 pl.), Botticelli, Filippino Lippi and Luca Signorelli (3 pl.). Apart from one painting of two Muses, all plates show Christian subjects - the life of Christ, lives of St Francis and other saints and Old Testament narratives. Ottley was enthusiastic admirer of early Renaissance painting, and here declares that 'in respect of the three great requisites of invention, composition and expression ... the best productions of these periods may even now be studied with profit, and those of Giotto ... abound in examples in which ... the intended subject is developed with a degree of perspicuity seldom equalled and perhaps never surpassed'.
Collection: DOCUMENTARY HERITAGEDescription: Publication-dates are carried by all plates except one (pl. [34]). One (pl. 5) carries the date 1809 Mar. 10; the others, dates in 1825 or 1826: 1825 Jan. 1 (8 pl.), Feb. 1 (5…