Reading is apparently the greatest proof of refinement when viewed within the context of the social climb of the visual artist. It is only as reader that the artist can participate in the exclusive culture of clerics, humanists, rulers and courtiers. How did it come about that such a figure was integrated into the general history-of-knowledge context of research on the early modern period - in order to outline what artists' reading specifically entails. Based on the history of knowledge, the contributions to this volume will then correspondingly elucidate various aspects of how, in the early...