Even a brief perusal of conferences for artists and art historians points to the growing interest among college and university instructors in incorporating multimedia experiences into curriculum and classroom settings. At the most recent College Art Association annual meeting in New York City in February 1997, there were no fewer than thirteen panels devoted to such issues as developing a pedagogy to accommodate new technologies, copyright issues in electronic media, and teaching on the Web. Faculty are recognizing the high level of computer skills students have attained by the time they reach college, and such sessions at professional conferences respond to this awareness. The positive side of this is that, as their instructors, we can expect a degree of competence on the part of students in traversing the Web in search of information. This very positive aspect, however, points to the downside of computer, more specifically internet, literacy -- with so many resources available in a format so much more inviting than their college libraries, how are distinctions made between what instructors consider valuable resources and a given home page on someone's favorite artist such as Michelangelo.
Once upon a time it was possible for instructors to know the literature for assigned research topics; this is no longer the case as we discover unexpected, and unreviewed, electronic citations in our students' bibliographies. However, we cannot avoid the fact that our students are relying on their dorm computers to carry out research for term papers. One way to address students' uncritical dependence on internet research is to offer them what they are looking for, i.e. "fun" research, in another format, the CD-ROM. We have reached the technological ability to offer students an experience of works of art that is almost as good as being in front of the object. In addition to being fun, instructors have the ability to guide students to selected CD-ROMs, while discouraging students' reliance on less suitable resources.
The two CD-ROMs considered here, "Michelangelo: The troubled genius and his times" and "The Renaissance of Florence," both offer spectacular images for study and teaching purposes along with an interactive format that allows individual users the freedom to work at their own pace. In terms of critical content, however, the two differ greatly, and should be directed to two very different audiences.
Once "Michelangelo" has been installed, the first screen offers the following selections: Index, Gallery, Biography by Places, the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Last Judgment, and Game.
The Index offers a monograph of Michelangelo's works starting with his drawings, followed by a chronological listing from the Head of a Faun (after Michelangelo?, ca. 1489, Palazzo Vecchio) to the Porta Pia (1562-64, Rome). Highlighting any of these titles brings up in a second window a list of views, details, and studies, along with location and date; double-click on any of these for the relevant text and image. Characteristic is the account of Michelangelo's creation of the Roman church of Sta. Maria degli Angeli out of the ruins of the ancient Baths of Diocletian, a project which occupied the final years of the artist's life. This entry would benefit from a diagram of the Baths indicating the area developed by Michelangelo into the church. This is particularly the case because the text is careful to point out that "Michelangelo's design consisted of a roof with a groin vault over the main hall (originally the "tepidarium") ... He also adapted the old structures to their new functions as chapel, apses, and vestibules ..." For a building so dependent upon earlier foundations and walls, it is essential to see at least the outline of the original structure for a full appreciation of the architect's adaptation of what remained, as well as his contribution. One is left asking "What is known of Michelangelo's work at the church?" Indeed, two interior views are given and dated 1561-64, suggesting that the wildly ecstatic angels at the window over the crossing are Michelangelo's. The text explains that "the first stone was laid [in 1561] but work immediately slowed down and was soon halted altogether, with the result that it was not until the eighteenth century, following an intervention by Vanvitelli, that the church assumed its present appearance." The audience for whom this CD-ROM is intended may not know that Vanvitelli was an architect, and they may not distinguish the elaborate Rococo overlay of the interior as eighteenth century from the information given in the text. More is needed here to clarify the extent of Michelangelo's contribution.
Similar criticism could be made of the entries on San Lorenzo, where a plan of the entire church would be useful since Michelangelo worked on the facade, the library, and the New Sacristy. The text points out that "the [New Sacristy] was to be constructed alongside Brunelleschi's Old Sacristy," so the physical relationship between these structures needs to be made apparent. There are entries on each of Michelangelo's projects at San Lorenzo with breathtaking interior views of the architecture and sculpture, as well as numerous details and sketches. In spite of this reviewer's criticism of what is included and what has been left out, the gaps provide for more conventional teaching formats, i.e. lecture with slides and discussion, thereby keeping the instructor and students in contact with one another.
The Gallery is another way to access a selection of Michelangelo's works. Here material is presented in thumbnail images and presented in chronological order, making it easy to browse. Upon finding the desired work, the user clicks on the image for detail views, text, and an occasional video. For example, there are moving videos for the dome of St. Peter's and the Florentine Pietà; the quality of these videos varies depending on the capabilities of your computer. Other videos offered, for example the Doni Tondo, are spoken narratives with excellent still views of the work and related works, in this case Raphael's Doni Portraits. Such comparisons allow the viewer to appreciate not only Michelangelo's accomplishment as a young artist in Florence at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but something of the distinctive and dynamic artistic options available to patrons in this city.
The Biography by Places opens with an interactive Early Modern map of Europe which allows one to access information on the Italian cities of Caprese, Michelangelo's birthplace, Florence, Bologna, and Rome, as well as entries on Europe. Choosing Caprese, for example, brings one to the options His birth, His childhood and youth, and The Portrait. His birth is a brief, but enlightening narrative that includes Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, Michelanglo's father, noting the birth of his son, as well as an account of the astrological, Christian, and natural signs that occurred at the time of the birth as interpreted by Ascanio Condivi, Michelangelo's friend and biographer. These primary sources are accompanied by still views of Tuscan hill towns and vistas, Michelangelo's study of the Madonna and Child of ca. 1520-25 (Casa Buonarrotti), and works by Michelangelo's contemporaries (unfortunately unidentified) that add to an appreciation of the artist's lif e through a kind of "art as reflection of historical method," an approach much appreciated by general audiences and our undergraduates. At the conclusion of each narrative, the text appears. Here, one find words or names highlighted in red or blue. Clicking on Ascanio Condivi, in red, brings one to a brief account of Condivi's life, his relationship to Michelangelo, and the importance of his biography. Clicking on Rome, in blue, brings up Bellotto's Capriccio with Triumphal Arch (Galleria Nazionale, Parma), a fantastic view of Roman ruins; one is given the option here of enlarging this painting to full screen - an impressive view, indeed - but no further information on Bellotto is offered. These red and blue options are excellent references for the student of Michelangelo; it is, therefore, all the more unfortunate that they can only be accessed within these texts, and not through a dictionary or similar independent glossary. Offerings on the Sistine Ceiling and the Last Judgment may be the most popular, and perhaps the most timely. There are abundant images, both before and after conservation, of the Sistine Ceiling frescoes, in addition to an illustrated audio history of Michelangelo's project and descriptive texts on such topics as Michelangelo the Colorist, The Painted Architecture, and The Scaffolding. The Scaffolding includes the artist's caricature of himself painting the ceiling (ca. 1508-12, Casa Buonarrotti), but no view of the original scaffolding holes found by conservators in 1983 and used by them in the most recent and dramatic cleaning of the vault. The Last Judgment, unfortunately, is represented only by pre-conservation images, so it is impossible for the user to make comparisons between the two frescoes. The details of the Last Judgment are as good as can be expected, and allow for as close an examination of the dead, the demons, and the angelic crowds as one could wish to have. The audio portion of the Last Judgment is The Scandal, an account of sixteenth-century criticisms of the fresco.
The chronology within the Biography by Places begins with the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 and concludes with the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, thus extending the historical context beyond Michelangelo's lifespan (1475-1564). This is a much welcomed outline because it allows for consideration of social, philosophical, and religious events which played such a significant role in Michelangelo's development as an individual and artist. The chronology encourages users to see Michelangelo's life and work within the context of the diaspora of Greek scholars after 1453 and the support of Neoplatonism at the Medici court where Michelangelo resided for a period around 1489 and 1490, and the Counter-Reform movement which gained momentum during the final years of the artist's life, and to which his late work, especially the Florence and Rondanini Pietàs, so powerfully respond. Although the narrative here does not state connections between the events of 1453 and 1572 and the work of Michelangelo, such connections are implied by the selection of these dates, and offer yet another occasion for class discussion about how Michelangelo is studied as a maker of history, and not merely a creator of objects that reflect a history.
The Game will challenge even an expert's memory of Michelangelo's work. Three levels of difficulty offer the user an ejoyable opportunity to test her or his eye. The viewer chooses one of eleven works, sometimes only details; the selection is then presented on the screen as scrambled. The object of the game, of course, is for the player to unscramble the image within a period of time. To reduce one's frustration in piecing together the puzzle, one may click on the question mark at the lower right corner of the screen for a reminder of the work. For those of our students most adept at fighting galactic aliens, the Game may be an enticing introduction to the world of Renaissance art.
In areas, the text needs revision and editing. Some problems may be the result of awkward translations from Italian into English, causing confusing suggestions, such as that Nicolo dell'Arca (ca. 1435-94), "had contacts with the late Gothic sculptor Claus Sluter" (active 1379-1405); given these artists' dates, the nature of these "contacts" needs clarification. There are other instances where typographical errors further confuse, such as referring to Bernardino Ochino, the Vicar General of the Capuchin order in the 1530s, as "Ferdinando Ochino." One wonders if the publisher brought the CD-ROM to the market too soon before the text was fully edited. Nonetheless, the text is admirable for a general overview of Michelangelo's work, and it is, after all, this work which will inspire viewers to go further in their study of the great artist.
"Michelangelo: The troubled genius and his times" is an excellent value for the money; indeed, the cost of printing even half of the images in color would make a book affordable to few private purchasers, and even art history departments would balk at the expense. For example, the recent publication by Frederick Hartt, et al., The Sistine Chapel, A Glorious Restoration, costs $990.00. Available on this CD-ROM for careful study and comparison, however, are numerous views of the Ceiling frescoes, both before and after conservation. For $60.00, there is probably no better source for color images of the artist's work. In fact, as a resource for exceptionally fine reproductions of much of Michelanglo's work, this CD-ROM is sufficiently inexpensive to offer as "recommended reading" in any seminar on Michelangelo at the graduate or undergraduate level.
Upon opening "The Renaissance of Florence: The Art and Architecture of Florence" the user is treated to a passage from the First Day of Boccaccio's The Decameron: "Here we shall hear the birds sing ... We shall see fresh green hills, and fields of corn undulating like the sea." While listening to this reading, our eyes feast upon spectacular views of Florence and the Tuscan countryside. After this short introduction, the user is brought to the Piazza Grande (the image is the edited piazza of Perugino's Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter in the Sistine Chapel). Here, the user may select one of the following options: an Overview, History, The Arts, Epilogue, or Credits and Exit.
Selecting History summons a narrative which presents a general discussion of why the Renaissance happened in Florence, and probably confirms most of our introductory lectures regarding the importance of urban centers, the investment of capital in the arts, and the use of arts for political propaganda. This is followed by the History Courtyard, where the backdrop is the architecture of Veronese's 1573 Feast in the House of Levi. Here, one may choose entries on The Woman, The Medici, or The Popes. The Woman opens with the comment "The Middle Ages had not been kind to women ..." explaining that girls learned to read only if they went into a convent, that the Church viewed women as "a suspicious source of lust and physical indulgence," and that "to the common man, women were little more than domestic property." These sweeping statements oversimplify what was, in fact, a complex period for women in western Europe. Nevertheless, it is important that there is a place here for some account of the history of women, although one could ask why Woman is so singular and universal, while Man is presented in his particular roles as statesman, warrior, patron of the arts, and religious leader. Throughout this narrative the user views works of art that contain representations of women, works which are here presented as art reflecting society. For example, the point is made that ancient Roman authors not only "[taught] the Florentines about art, [they] bestowed upon women a new sense of respect. . . The new attitude shows in the paintings of the period. [Fade to Fra Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Child of ca. 1455 in theUffizi] There is a new tenderness for women, without the shame and guilt that had ruled art for so long." The Woman concludes with a view of Raphael's Galatea, a curious choice for a CD-ROM on the art of quattrocento Renaissance Florence. The Galatea, a work of 1513, is very much a product of Raphael's Roman period; in fact, the fresco is in the Roman Villa Farnesina. Unforunately, Raphael's work is unidentified, but even without identification it would seem to be difficult to accept the muscular, even masculine, and barely draped body of the mythological nymph as analogous to the contemporary Renaissance Woman referred to in the text.
Selecting The Arts brings the user to The Arts Courtyard, the setting is a variation of the background of Domenico Veneziano's St. Lucy's Altarpiece of ca. 1445-47. Here, one selects either Architecture, Painting or Sculpture. There is no general narrative introduction, as in History, but introductions are available within each section.
Within Architecture, one is offered two options: an entry on the life of Brunelleschi and a Tour of major architectural monuments of the city. Brunelleschi opens with Giorgio Vasari speaking from his 1568 Life of Brunelleschi, as well as Vitruvius's comments on proportion. There is also a discussion of perspective, although the opportunity is missed to define perspective with the aid of computer generated imagery. One can imagine a grid superimposed over the arcade of the Ospedale degli Innocenti, and these morphing into a diagram of single-point perspective. The tour includes entries on the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio, and San Lorenzo, for which there are videos, as well as the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the Baptistery, the Bargello, Sta. Croce, the Uffizi, and the Ponte Vecchio. The narratives are brief; for example, that for Sta. Croce states only that the church is the burial place for many artists, but does not refer to the frescoes by Giotto and his followers that were so influential on the art of Renaissance Florence.
Sculpture and Painting are similarly organized with an overview, a catalogue of works, and brief entries on particular artists. The artists' entries usually include excerpts from Vasari's biography for evidence of Renaissance ideas, although these are unanalyzed. One may easily go to the text for each of these selections by clicking on the page fold at the lower right corner of the screen. Here, the text appears with some words highlighted in green; the viewer clicks on these words to hear this passage in its original Italian. It would, perhaps, be more useful if the Italian was given alongside the English in the text. The catalogue is the most useful in both Sculpture and Painting for it provides a full view and details (of fair or good quality) of numerous works by the artists. Each work is shown with the name of the artist, title, date, location, and source; details are projected for a few seconds only, and unfortunately cannot be stopped for careful study.
By way of summary, the Epilogue points to the directions art will take in the sixteenth century in Italy. There are references here to how Venetian artists elaborated on the accomplishments of Florentine quattrocento artists by focussing on the "sensuous element of the new Renaissance style: the sfumato of da Vinci, the richness of fine cloth, the inner spirit of the Renaissance individual." Rome, it is stated, became the new center of art through the sense of the heroic instilled by Michelangelo. For the city of Florence, alas, the sixteenth century brought only "the end of a golden age ... What remained for the city was to remember and preserve." This sentimental notion is underscored by the final image - a view of Piazzale Michelangelo at sunset with the copy of Michelangelo's David overlooking the city of Florence. The Epilogue opens with Vasari stating "I have endeavored to distinguish between the good, the better, and the best ... to show people the sources and origins of various styles." This reviewer feels that, like Vasari, this CD-ROM has attempted to demonstrate the variety within quattrocento Florentine art. Also like Vasari is the bias towards Florentine art which, in the case of the CD-ROM, has resulted in the suggestion that all that was "good art" at this time was produced in Florence. Unlike Vasari, however, there is little here to elicit thoughts other than "How beautiful."
A major shortcoming to "The Renaissance of Florence" is the fact that most images are nowhere identified, either by artist or by subject, not even under Credits, making this CD-ROM inadequate, at best, for the teaching of Renaissance art. Indeed, images are used solely for illustrative purposes, and are not always representative of Florentine art, as in the case of Raphael's Galatea. Although the user may find some images identified in the catalogues in The Arts, it is not easy to locate the work unless one knows the name of the artist. This raises the issue of for whom this CD-ROM was designed. The audience could, perhaps, be students in general humanities courses where a study of particular movements and works is secondary to getting a "feel" for a cultural milieu. Rather than an academic setting, this admittedly entertaining and certainly beautiful CD-ROM would be a excellent resource for an educated traveller making plans to visit an unfamiliar city and wanting to anticipate the treasures that await.
There are important reasons to encourage art history departments to collect CD-ROMS as an integral part of supporting the visual resources in any art history program: the images are almost always superior to those available in texts or as slides, and these offer the possibility for students to experience something of the spatial qualities of sculpture and architecture. Finally, as students will be on their computers anyway, we should offer them the best resources available.