First published in German in 1938 and later translated into English, this classic of Italian Renaissance historiography centres on the relationship between Florentine art and the conditions under which it was created. In rich detail, Martin Wackernagel explores the impact of patronage and function, widespread demand for art, workshop techniques, and businesses practices on artists' lives and the results they achieved

Wackernagel stresses the changing roles of commissions and patrons in the late fourteenth to the early fifteenth centuries, from small-scale enterprise under Lorenzo de...