Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-307) and index.

1. Early Renaissance (1440-1500) : From Gothic to Renaissance ; The response to Padua ; Giovanni Bellini and Antonello's visit of 1475-6 ; Narrative painting and the Ventian Scuole ; Devotional painting after Antonello ; Fifteenth-century portraiture ; The profession of painter -- 2. High Renaissance (1500-1540) : Giorgione ; The younger generation ; The older generation ; Titian : the years of maturity ; Titian's contemporaries ; Lotto and Pordenone in Venice -- 3. Late Renaissance (1540-1590) : The Mannerist experiment ; Titian : the later career ; Theory and criticism ; Jacopo Bassano and Venice ; Tintoretto ; Veronese ; The painters of the Doge's Palace.

The Renaissance was a golden age in the long history of Venetian painting, and the art that came from Venice during that era includes some of the most visually exciting works in the whole of western art. This attractive book - a comprehensive account of painting in Venice from Bellini to Titian to Tintoretto - is an accessible introduction to the paintings of this period.

Peter Humfrey surveys the development of a distinctly Venetian artistic tradition from the middle years of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century. He discusses the work of Jacopo and Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto as well as the paintings of those less well known - such as the three Vivarini, Cima, Carpaccio, Palma Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto and Jacopo Bassano. Humfrey analyses these painters' works in terms of their pictorial style, technique, subject matter, patronage and function. He also sets the art against the background of the political, social and religious conditions of Renaissance Venice, as outlined in his Introduction. The book includes an appendix that provides brief biographies of thirty-six of the most important painters active in Renaissance Venice.