This is the first history of tomb sculpture to span the shift of the papacy cardinalate from Rome to Avignon. Too often there has been a concentration on the work of individual sculptors, based on more or less tenable attributions; however, Professor Gardner discusses the surviving or documented tombs of popes, cardinals, and important clerics in Rome and central Italy from the viewpoints of style, context, funerary legislation and testamentary wishes. The move to Avignon brought with it radical changes in the personnel, burial customs, and artistic environment of the papal curia, and Paris, Westminster, and Toulouse became points of reference. Important surviving tombs at Limoges, Montpezat, Toledo, and Prague are brought into the ambit of curial tomb sculpture, and the effect on Roman sculpture itself of the absence of the papacy is discussed, together with the problem of sepulchral portraiture. The European resonances of tomb sculpture in both Rome and Avignon are considered for the first time. This book is a major contribution to the field, and likely to remain a standard work on the subject for a considerable length of time.
來源: Google Book