Jewels of the Renaissance | Assouline

The fascination of jewels is rooted not only in their ability to please the eye but also in their power to express the range of human emotions and ambitions—love, friendship, religious devotion, superstition, dynastic pride. Renaissance jewels are among the most alluring manifestations of an age that experienced the widening of old-established horizons, from the Old World to the New. Dr. Yvonne Hackenbroch’s seminal and comprehensive work, Renaissance Jewellery, originally published in 1979, established her reputation as the world’s foremost expert in the fi eld. Hackenbroch brings to the subject not only her specialized knowledge and historical discipline but also a storyteller’s passion for the jewels’ beauty and power. With the kind permission of Dr. Hackenbroch’s estate, Assouline has abridged Dr. Hackenbroch’s original text to produce this spectacular volume, brimming with luxurious imagery expressing the overfl owing creativity and boundless spirit of the Age of the Renaissance. Yvonne Hackenbroch (1912–2012) was born in Frankfurt, Germany; she studied art history at the University of Munich, earning a doctorate in 1936. During and after the war she worked partly at the British Museum, and was part of the team that catalogued the Sutton Hoo treasure. In 1949 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York invited her to become a curator specializing in Renaissance art. Her book Renaissance Jewellery , published in 1979, is considered the seminal work on the subject, extending her worldwide reputation as the leading expert in this field. Gonzague Saint Bris is a French writer, historian, journalist, and radio and television broadcaster who resides in his family château, Clos Lucé at Amboise, where Leonardo da Vinci lived and died. Creator of events such as the Cabourg Romantic Film Festival in Normandy and the Forest of Books, a literature festival in the Loire Valley, Saint Bris has been awarded Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and Commander of Ar