Art Bibliographies: A Survey of Their Development, 1595-1821

The beginnings of art bibliography are traced through three distinct bibliographic traditions: dealers' catalogs, general bibliographies, and private library catalogs. Dealers' catalogs, such as the "Messkataloge" of the sixteenth century, were some of the earliest to list art books under their own category. Later, general bibliographies with sections on art helped define the term "art book" more strictly by placing it among other intellectual disciplines. Bibliographies of private scholars' libraries, such as the Cicognara bibliography, established art bibliographies as annotated and recommended lists written by authorities in the field of art. The influence of Enlightenment thinkers such as Kant and Winckelmann is shown to be particularly important for these works, as is the mass marketing of the biographies of artists in the later part of the eighteenth century.