'… this is a brilliant and penetrating book: learned, urbane, well-written … and above all informed by a deep, visual sensibility which makes his detailed analysis of individual works of art exceptionally full and compelling.' Apollo Magazine
1. Criticism, connoisseurship, and the phenomenology of drawing; 2. Disegno: the invention of an art; 3. The handwriting of the self: Leonardo da Vinci; 4. Raphael and the calligraphy of classicism; 5. Disegni a stampa: the printed line; 6. Michelangelo: the urgent gesture; 7. Rembrandt's reach; 8. Capriccio: the antic line.