Books published by publisher Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston

In the early Middle Ages knights fighting on horseback were important members of an army. They needed great skills to handle their horses and weapons, and in peacetime elaborate competitions - the first tournaments - were held to test these skills. In this remarkable portrait of the world of medieval tournaments, Richard Barber and Anne Dalton describe the development of these contests over 500 years and look at one tournament, from about 1450, in detail. Winner of the 1978 "Times Educational Supplement" Junior Information Book Award.

The material presented in this volume significantly extends what has been known to date of Asian textiles produced from the Tang (618-907) through the early Ming period (late 14th-early 15th century), and new documentation gives full recognition to the importance of luxury textiles in the history of Asian art. Costly silks and embroideries were the primary vehicle for the migration of motifs and styles from one part of Asia to another, particularly during the Tang and Mongol (1207-1368) periods. In addition, they provide material evidence of both the cultural and religious ties that linked ethnic groups and the impetus to artistic creativity that was inspired by exposure to foreign goods.The demise of the Silk Roads and the end of expansionist policies, together with the rapid increase in maritime trade, brought to an end the vital economic and cultural interchange that had characterized the years preceding the death of the Ming-dynasty Yongle emperor in 1424. Overland, intrepid merchants no longer transported silks throughout Eurasia and weavers no longer traveled to distant lands. But the products that survive from that wondrous time attest to a glorious era - when silk was resplendent as gold.

Meant as an update and a corrective to The Age of Caravaggio show, this exhibition and catalogue inaugurates the extended loan to the Metropolitan Museum of a newly identified painting by Caravaggio, The Lute Player, one of the artist's best-known works in seventeenth-century Rome. Almost completely ignored by modern scholars, recently published documentation now establishes the picture's authorship and provenance beyond any doubt. The exhibition includes three other pictures, in addition to The Lute Player, that were made for his patron Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, but also a variant of the title work now residing in the Hermitage that was created for the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani. Taken together, these pictures constitute the most important group of secular works by the artist ever assembled and provide a unique occasion to evaluate both Caravaggio's development as an artist and the importance of Cardinal del Monte as a patron and collector.No less significant than the appearance and reidentification of "new" pictures by Caravaggio are some developments—really advances—in our understanding of the cultural milieu in which he worked in Rome and of the meaning that underlies some of his most familiar early masterpieces. Once such advance is the subject of the second part of the exhibition, which investigates music and musical practice and patronage in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italy through paintings and prints. Also included are musical instruments of the period similar to those in the paintings, which have been drawn from the Metropolitan's comprehensive collection. [This book was originally published in 1990 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]