Summary: In sixteenth-century Venice, paintings were often treated as living beings. As this book shows, paintings attended dinner parties, healed the sick, made money, and became involved in love affairs. Presenting a range of case studies, Elsje van Kessel offers a detailed examination of the agency paintings and other two-dimensional images could exert. This lifelike agency is not only connected to the seemingly naturalistic style of these images – works by Titian, Giorgione and their contemporaries, illustrated here in over 150 plates. It is also brought in relation to their social-historical contexts, meticulously unravelled through archival research. Grounded in the theoretical literature on the agency of material things, The Lives of Paintings contributes to Venetian studies as well as engaging with wider debates on the attribution of life and presence to images andobjects.

Contents: At the Doge's Palace: Setting the Parameters ; The Lives of Paintings ; Venice as a Case Study ; A Modern Miracle: Christ Carrying the Cross in the Scuola di San Rocco - Genesis and Early History - 'Che muove le lacrime à pietosi riguardanti': The Painting as a Trigger of Response - Frame and Other Sacred Objects - Adaptations - The Scuola di San Rocco and the Initiators of the Cult - The Faithful - The Changing Role of the Artist - Conclusion: The Pious Painter ; A Portrait Defaced: The Donor Portrait of Broccardo Malchiostro in the Duomo of Treviso - The Cappella dell'Annunziata - Titian's Annunciation - Artistic Innovation as a Problem - Donor Portraits - Frontality - In Search of a Culprit - Image Destruction and Pictorial Mockery - Image Destruction and Ritual Violence - Iconoclasm and Christianity - Conclusion: Malchiostro's End - Excursus: '… maledetto il saper vostro …': Titian and Poetic Iconoclasm ; A Martyr of Painting, Irene di Spilimbergo, Titian, and Venetian Portraiture between Life and Death - Irene di Spilimbergo, her Life and her Death - The Washington Portraits of Emilia and Irene - A Curious Genesis - Titian's Authorship - Agency in the Art of Painting - Paintings as Relics? - The Poem Collection - The Volume as Portrait - 'La mia vera effigie' - A Fragmented Image - A Debate of Vital Importance: Irene di Spilimbergo Paints her Self-Portrait - Nature Jealous of Art - Conclusion: A Fruitful Afterlife? ; Politics, Portraits, and Love: Francesco Bembo, Bianca Capello and 'the Most Beautiful Contemporary Painting in Venice' - 'A Figure so Notorious for Evil' - A Daughter of Venice - The Portrait - Francesco Bembo, the Poet - Bembo's Frame - A Civic Ritual - Francesco Bembo, a Man in Politics ; Conclusion: The Politics of Portraiture ; Epilogue: Life in the Collection. (Studien aus dem Warburg-Haus, 18)

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