With a freshness and breadth of approach that sets the art in its context, this book explores why works were created and who commissioned the palaces, cathedrals, paintings and sculptures. It covers Rome and Florence, Venice and the Veneto, Assisi, Siena, Milan, Pavia, Genoa, Padua, Mantua, Verona, Ferrara, Urbino and Naples. Chapters are grouped into four chronological parts, allowing for a sustained examination of individual cities in different periods. 'Contemporary Scene' boxes provide fascinating glimpses of daily life and 'Contemporary Voice' boxes quote from painters and writers of the time. Innovative and scholarly, yet accessible and beautifully presented, this book is a definitive work on the Italian Renaissance.

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John T. Paoletti is Professor of the History of Art at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. He has published widely on the patronage of the Medici family in Florence and on Michelangelo. Gary M. Radke is a Renaissance specialist at Syracuse University and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.