The definitive monograph on the greatest painter of the early Renaissance, now available in an affordable paperback edition

Giotto is traditionally considered a founder of the Italian Renaissance, praised for his understanding of space and the human body. Producing a series of commissioned works for the church and upper classes in his native Tuscany and surrounding regions, Giotto (c. 1267–1337) changed the course of European art by breaking away from the stiff, predictable figures of the Byzantine and medieval traditions. His great fresco cycles, most notably the lives of the Virgin and Christ in the Scrovegni (or Arena) Chapel, Padua, are filled with realistic depictions of three-dimensional figures set in dramatic, even revolutionary, perspectival spaces.

In this authoritative survey of Giotto's life and work, Francesca Flores d'Arcais draws on a broad range of sources, from fourteenth-century documents to recent art-historical investigations. Her research leads her to important reattributions of Giottesque paintings and to new conclusions regarding the execution and dating of both famous and lesser-known works. In this second edition of her study, d'Arcais also discusses the earthquake of September 26, 1997, that damaged the frescoes of the Upper Basilica of San Francisco in Assisi, some of which are attributed to the young Giotto. Now available in a paperback edition at an irresistible price, Giotto combines splendid images and d'Arcais's insightful text in the definitive monograph on the greatest of trecento masters.

A remarkable selection of American forest trees surveyed by François-André Michaux and Thomas Nuttall from The North American Sylva, held in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library of The New York Botanical Garden, featuring illustrations by celebrated botanical artists such as Pierre-Joseph Redouté and Pancrace Bessa, with an afterword by natural history artist David Allen Sibley

François-André Michaux (1770–1855) was a French botanist whose work on the trees of North America gave the world’s first illustrated account of American trees east of the Mississippi. From 1841 to 1849 Thomas Nuttall (1786–1859), an English botanist and one of the greatest plant explorers of North America, prepared supplementary volumes to Michaux’s landmark work, The North American Sylva.

Full-color reproductions of all of the more than 270 plates are now included in a single volume for the first time. Mirroring Abbeville’s best-selling National Audubon Society Birds of America, the book includes capsule summaries of every tree species featured, written by New York Botanical Garden staff, along with reference illustrations by David Allen Sibley.

Garden President Gregory Long looks at the book in the context of the New York Botanical Garden; NYBG Library Director Susan M. Fraser examines this landmark of American botanical history; award-winning garden writer Marta McDowell recounts the two botanist-explorers uncovering the continent’s arboreal riches; and best-selling ornithologist and natural history artist David Allen Sibley offers an aesthetic appreciation.

Beautifully illustrated and extensively researched, The Trees of North America will entice gardeners, art connoisseurs, and nature lovers alike.

The New York Botanical Garden hosts more than one million annual visitors to its 250-acre National Historic Landmark site, which features over one million living specimens, as well as one of the world’s preeminent plant research and conservation programs. Founded in 1899, the Garden’s Mertz Library is one of the largest, most comprehensive botanical libraries in the world.

David Allen Sibley is one of the world’s best-known natural history illustrators and the author of acclaimed field guides, including The Sibley Guide to Trees, which have sold more than one million copies.

Gregory Long is Chief Executive Officer and The William C. Steere Sr. President of The New York Botanical Garden.

Susan M. Fraser is Vice President and Director of the LuEsther T. Mertz Library at The New York Botanical Garden.

Marta McDowell is a gardener, lecturer, and horticultural writer. Her books include All the Presidents’ Gardens (2016) and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life (2013), winner of the Gold Award from the Garden Writers Association.

Color your way through this insider’s tour of New York City’s iconic landmarks and little-seen neighborhoods, alongside the plants and animals that know them best

Explore lively streets, scenic parks, and teeming waterfronts in Wildlife of New York, a coloring adventure that celebrates the vibrant, humming energy of New York City and its surprisingly varied animal life. Artist Giada Crispiels’ playful scenes highlight beloved landmarks from all five boroughs—like Central Park, Coney Island, and the New York Botanical Garden—alongside charming neighborhood nooks and crannies. There are dozens of animals, from common squirrels to eagles and coyotes, that thrive in every corner of the urban jungle. The animals, as well as all of the featured locations, are described in lively captions at the back of the book.

Selected to fit any reader’s preference, Wildlife of New York’s artist quality paper reflects any coloring implement’s hue—whether it be markers, pens, or coloring pencils—in arresting blends and bold vividness. Packed with enchanting details, it will provide hours of fun for colorists of all ages, while opening their eyes to the amazing ecological diversity of even the most bustling cityscape.

 From the best-selling photographer of Ancient Trees, an arresting collection of black-and-white chicken portraits paired with quotations from classic literature.

Mesmerizing black-and-white photographs of the world’s most majestic ancient trees.

Holiday Gift Guide Selection -- San Francisco Chronicle

Beth Moon’s fourteen-year quest to photograph ancient trees has taken her across the United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some of her subjects grow in isolation, on remote mountainsides, private estates, or nature preserves; others maintain a proud, though often precarious, existence in the midst of civilization. All, however, share a mysterious beauty perfected by age and the power to connect us to a sense of time and nature much greater than ourselves. It is this beauty, and this power, that Moon captures in her remarkable photographs.

This handsome volume presents sixty of Moon’s finest tree portraits as full-page duotone plates. The pictured trees include the tangled, hollow-trunked yews—some more than a thousand years old—that grow in English churchyards; the baobabs of Madagascar, called “upside-down trees” because of the curious disproportion of their giant trunks and modest branches; and the fantastical dragon’s-blood trees, red-sapped and umbrella-shaped, that grow only on the island of Socotra, off the Horn of Africa.

Moon’s narrative captions describe the natural and cultural history of each individual tree, while Todd Forrest, vice president for horticulture and living collections at the New York Botanical Garden, provides a concise introduction to the biology and preservation of ancient trees. An essay by the critic Steven Brown defines Moon’s unique place in a tradition of tree photography extending from William Henry Fox Talbot to Sally Mann, and explores the challenges and potential of the tree as a subject for art.