THE WORD “ MAGISTERIAL” IS OVERused by reviewers of academic books. Too often, it is merely a synonym for “big”. In the case of David Ekserdjian’s latest book, however, “magisterial” is, if anything, an understatement.
The Italian Renaissance Altarpiece is his magnum opus in every sense, weighing in at nearly 6lb, thanks to more than 250 superb illustrations, and with 400 double-column pages of text plus nearly 100 more of notes and other scholarly apparatus. It is comprehensive, discussing about a thousand of more than 10,000 altarpieces painted in Italy between 1300 and 1600. The publishers, Yale University Press, deserve great credit for keeping the price at an affordable level, thanks to the generosity of a long list sponsors.
Yet this beautiful volume’s real claim to magisterial status rests on the author’s ability to combine formidable erudition with pellucid prose, the elegance with which he organises his almost limitless material, and the originality of the entire enterprise. This book is the crowning achievement of a life’s work. “I first fell in love with Italian Renaissance art at the age of seventeen,” Ekserdjian tells us, “on a spring morning in 1973.” Since that first visit to the Uffizi, no other art historian has
