The winner and two runners-up of the first Italian Art Society Book Prize were announced at the business meeting at CAA.
The winner of the Italian Art Society Book prize for 2024:
Leah R. Clark, Courtly Mediators: Transcultural Objects between Renaissance Italy and the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Comments from the Premi Committee:
“Clark’s sophisticated book centers on the material exchange, collecting, and reproduction of transcultural objects, including Mamluk metalware, Chinese porcelain, ceramic drug jars and aromatics, and other ‘objets croisèe,’ by the courts of Ferrara and Naples during the Renaissance. Drawing on a broad range of archival, technical, material, and visual evidence, Clark’s compelling methodology reconciles the entangled socio-political importance of their representation and possession and provides a model for future art historical investigations of global material cultures.”
The two runners-up for the Italian Art Society Book Prize for 2024:
Diana Bullen Presciutti, Saints, Miracles, and Social Problems in Italian Renaissance Art, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
Comments from the Premi Committee:
“Presciutti’s fascinating and original book investigates artistic depictions of miracles performed by mendicant saints, arguing that these images both reflected and shaped perceptions of social problems in early Renaissance Italy. Presciuti provides an innovative approach to understanding selected miraculous scenes, focusing on viewer reception and on the ways in which images created meaning, with close attention to issues of gender, sexuality, and honor.”
Diane Cole Ahl, Painting in Fifteenth-Century Italy: “This Splendid and Noble Art,” Yale University Press, 2023.
Comments from the Premi Committee:
“Ahl’s magisterial survey of Quattrocento painting traverses the Italian peninsula from north to south, providing penetrating insight about art production along a rich itinerary stretching from Venice to Messina. Moving through but, importantly, beyond the most familiar centers, Ahl offers a dynamic account of fifteenth-century painting, attentive to its materials, making, and display, with important lessons for students and scholars alike.”