Giorgione's Tempest: Interpreting the Hidden Subject

Giorgione's Tempest: Interpreting the Hidden Subject by Settis, Salvatore. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780226748948.

The Tempest is Giorgiones most enigmatic painting. It is a depiction of Giorgiones own family, of the "family of man" tale from Boccaccio, or of the myth of Apollos birth? In this remarkable study, Salvatore Settis uses the mystery of the painting to shed light on the relationship between artist, patron, work, and critic. The result is a brilliant piece of detective work in the history and sociology of culture that stresses the function of Giorgiones art for the emerging, classically educated connoisseur elite of sixteenth-century Venice.