In the late sixteenth century, European publications about the Americas had few illustrations, so printmakers felt free to invent imagery about the peoples and lands across the Atlantic.
Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank
The first book ever printed by an American author was Rhetorica Christiana by Diego de Valadés, who was born in Mexico to a Spanish conquistador father and an indigenous mother.
Engravings in Diego de Valadés’s Rhetorica Christiana
Christine de Pizan was an author and intellectual and wasn't afraid to show the strength of women in the early 15th century.
Christine de Pizan and a City of ...
Get to know fifteenth-century Aragonese painting, which draws on Italian and Northern Renaissance influences.
The Renaissance in Spain, The Morata Master
Roll over Bellini, and tell Tintoretto the news. The Renaissance in Spain.
St. Michael defeats the devil in Renaissance ...
Two years before the Spanish expel the Jews and begin their invasion of the Americas, an artist paints an image of redemption.
Bartolomé Bermejo, Piedad with Canon Lluís Desplà
Christine de Pizan was the first professional author and an important female role model from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
Portraits of Christine de Pizan in The ...
What does the music of heaven sound like?
What does the music of heaven sound ...
The Northern Renaissance style comes to Spain and is gloriously transformed.
Fifteenth-century Spanish painting, an introduction
After Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492, items from the Americas were shipped to Europe where they were perceived as exotic items of wonder and fascination.
The Medici collect the Americas
After Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492, items from the Americas were shipped to Europe where they were perceived as exotic items of wonder and fascination.
The Medici collect the Americas
After Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492, items from the Americas were shipped to Europe where they were perceived as exotic items of wonder and fascination.
The Medici collect the Americas
Brilliant golden brocades. Psuedo-Arabic. Turbans. Leopards and lions. The Adoration of the Magi speaks to the global flow of goods at this time.
Gentile da Fabriano, Adoration of the Magi ...
De Bry's images of the Americas affirm and assert a sense of European superiority.
Inventing “America”: Theodore de Bry’s Collected travels ...
De Bry's images of the Americas affirm and assert a sense of European superiority.
Inventing “America” for Europe: Theodore de Bry
De Bry's images of the Americas affirm and assert a sense of European superiority.
Inventing “America,” The Engravings of Theodore de ...
Must all renaissance art history trumpet the achievements of famed artists such as Masaccio, Leonardo and Van Eyck? Can we center other narratives?
Expanding the Renaissance: a new Smarthistory initiative
Too many assumptions persist about Native American arts and cultures—start here to disentangle fact from fiction.
Terms and Issues in Native American Art
“Native American” is a broad term encompassing many diverse groups.
About geography and chronological periods in Native ...
This mesa in New Mexico is believed to hold one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the US.