For introductory college-level courses in art history that include a survey of Italian Renaissance art. It may also appeal to the general reader interested in art history, especially the Renaissance.

This text combines a discussion of history and art as it focuses on the smaller courts of Mantua, Ferrara, Naples, and Urbino that produced an extraordinary amount of great art. The book presents the work created there as the culmination of the desire of princes and dukes wishing to show the world their magnificence as rulers and their virtue as leaders of culture.