This highly-illustrated book emphasizes above all the diversity of the Italian Renaissance in the period between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries: the enormously varied forms of cultural achievement and the different circumstances that prevailed in various contexts, both urban and courtly. Richard MacKenney examines why the great revival did not touch the whole of Italy or the majority of its people. He argues that, while the wonder and joy of classical rebirth remained vivid, there was also a dimension of anxiety, especially in the challenge that ancient cultures posed to...

For many generations, the importance of the Italian Renaissance lay in its marking the beginning of modern times by means of a self-conscious break with the middle ages. This book seeks above all to convey the variety of cultural activity in Italy in the period between the fourteenth-century and the seventeenth: at different times within those three centuries, in different places in Italy, in association with different political ideologies. While this involves a measure of deconstruction, it also demands a synthesis that aims to communicate the richness of historical experience in the regions...