David Franklin is former Chief Curator at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and editor of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Florence, a catalogue published by Yale University Press to accompany a major exhibition of the same name held at the Gallery from May 29, 2005 to September 5, 2005.

We talk here mostly about the exhibition catalogue as book: what differentiates it from typical works of scholarly non-fiction, the challenges of catering both to the research community and the general public. what is it? A tour guide? A souvenir? A text book? Offering words for works; the drawbacks of publishing to deadline; how, ideally, catalogues should be written after exhibitions take place…

But we don’t ignore content: the pragmatism of Giorgio Vasari; his art collection; the primacy of drawing in Renaissance Florence; painting as a process of investigation; and the jolting juxtaposition of illuminating essays and academic catalogue entries…