Abstract
Artists during the Renaissance were prolific in their pictorial story-telling. One of the primary aims of art in this period was to illustrate stories. In the many examples of such story-telling, it can be difficult to decide whether the stories of Renaissance artists could be tied to the sacred or the secular realm. ‘Story-telling in Renaissance art’ considers this tradition and the tension between the secular and religious in such artworks as altarpieces; illuminated manuscripts; and fresco cycles on walls, domes, and ceilings of churches. How a particular story was told pictorially, and how it was interpreted, depended very much on the interests, beliefs, and priorities of the patron and his or her contemporary beholders.
