Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This study provides a radical reinterpretation of Holbein's famous painting. The celebrated portrait of two French diplomats at the court of Henry VIII has usually been linked to the political and religious unrest of the day. John North shows that the painting has a very different, and previously undetected, central theme and many other meanings.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

North (emer., philosophy, Univ. of Groningen, Netherlands) offers an entirely new interpretation of Hans Holbein's Ambassadors, the largest and most complex of Holbein's works. The author dispels brilliantly many previously constructed interpretations through a very detailed and often innovative research strategy that connects art historical analysis with detailed knowledge of the history of philosophy and exact sciences. He presents this painting as a Christian allegory, replete with Christianized Greek cosmology, geometry, scientism, and Napoleonic ideas, among others, not to mention a degree of opacity and intellectual enigma cultivated among humanist scholars. Since his highly original and well-argued proposal involves much reference, lesser-known research, and analytical detail, the book is subdivided into 16 chapters in three major parts. This book's major contribution is that it is the first to convincingly reveal hidden patterns in the painting and connect them to the complex, scholarly, and intellectual culture of the 16th century. The research bibliography and the extensive notes are very useful and contain much hitherto unknown information. This book will significantly alter scholarly discussions of Holbein and his most complex painting and represents a new quality standard in this genre. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Graduate students through professionals. H. J. Van Miegroet Duke University