Thomas P. Campbell. Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence.

London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. (Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition catalogue.) x + 594 pp. + 250 color pls. + 126 b/w pls. index. illus. bibl. $75. ISBN: 0-300-09370-5.

Because of their huge cost, vast size, and rich splendor, tapestries were invaluable to princes throughout Europe who wished to impress others with an ostentatious display of their wealth and power. Henry VIII owned more than 2,700 tapestries and Leo X spent five times the cost of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling on Raphael's Acts of the Apostles. Yet despite their importance, Renaissance tapestries have been largely ignored. Many have been lost or are poorly preserved, and art historians have traditionally privileged the fine arts over the decorative arts, Italy over northern Europe, and medieval tapestries over those of the Renaissance. For all these reasons, Thomas P. Campbell's outstanding volume, Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence, is the first comprehensive history of tapestry production from 1460 to 1560 in the Netherlands, France, and Italy. This book focuses on the contribution of key patrons, designers, and weavers; the stylistic development of tapestries; their function within the life of the court; and the economic and multicultural circumstances of their production.

Campbell's text is clearly organized. It proceeds chronologically with each essay focusing on a geographical area and accompanied by in-depth catalogue entries of relevant modelli, cartoons, or tapestries. Thoroughly researched, this book synthesizes past publications, while also offering new interpretations. Generous color plates, many showing stunning details, enhance Campbell's text.

One focus of this volume is the artists who shaped the stylistic development of Renaissance tapestries. Chapter sections are devoted to such designers as Raphael, Giulio Romano, and Bernaert van Orley, and thumbnail sketches of the careers of artists are especially useful for such lesser-known figures as Michiel Coxcie. But Campbell does not remain satisfied with traditional questions of attribution. Rather, he explores issues of collaboration, noting that often one artist or shop contributed the preliminary drawing, another produced the full-scale cartoon, and yet a third executed the weaving. Since at each stage the design was interpreted creatively, and the workload was frequently divided between figure and landscape specialists, determining attributions is especially problematic.

Campbell also examines the multicultural aspects of production and consumption. Although Brussels was the center of high-quality tapestry production and Antwerp controlled the export trade, small shops proliferated throughout France and Italy. For a single commission, the patron, designer, merchant, and weaver often lived in widely dispersed regions. Italian patrons generally preferred tapestries woven in Brussels; Francis I favored Italian designs. Italians apprenticed with northern weavers; Netherlandish weavers moved south to establish shops. In these ways, cultural ideas were exchanged across political borders.

Campbell analyzes contemporary sources to determine how quality was judged in Renaissance Europe. Patrons displayed their finest tapestries in the most important rooms on the most important occasions, and at least one, Francis I, was able to articulate the relative merits of two sets of tapestries. Inventories note the comparative value of tapestries, and guild inspectors voiced their estimation, criticizing one weaving for weak outlines and faces that lacked subtlety.

Campbell also explores financial aspects of the industry. Merchants, such as Nicholas Bataille and Pieter van Aelst, negotiated contracts, supplied advances to cartoonists and weavers, and supervised the progress of commissions. Ludovico Guicciardini deemed tapestry production the most profitable metier in Brussels, and by 1546 one-third of the city's population was involved in the trade. Painters and weavers, motivated by the desire for financial gain, sued each other over the right to create cartoons, and Cosimo de'Medici promoted tapestry weaving in Florence in the hopes of stimulating the economy there. To maximize profits, shops adopted shortcuts, using paint or crayon as filler. Merchants falsely described tapestries as the work of Brussels until guild regulations required that the marks of the city and weaver be woven into hangings.

Campbell's suggestion that the intertwined initials in the Unicorn tapestries refer to Adam and Eve is unconvincing, but he is right to conclude that the religious persecutions of the 1560s-1580s devastated tapesrty production. Graduate students should mine this book for his many suggestions for further research, and the rest of us can only hope that Campbell will now investigate tapestries from other regions and the coarsely woven decorative verdures that formed the vast majority of tapestries from all European centers. Until then, his rich and thorough text will remain the fundamental study on Renaissance tapestries.

DIANE WOLFTHAL

Arizona State University