Paolo Veronese's painting, Allegory of Wisdom and Strength, has been acclaimed both for its technical virtuosity and its remarkable journey through history. During more than four centuries it has been a silent witness to great political dramas - war, abdication, revolution, and attempted assassination; and to the personal tragedies of emperors, queens, the royal dukes of France, and the corrupt cardinals of Italy. And it has belonged to some of the greatest collectors in history - Rudolf II, Queen Christina of Sweden, the Duc d'Orleans, Philippe-Egalite, Thomas Hope, and the picture's final owner, the American industrialist Henry Clay Frick. It now hangs among the Reynoldses, the Rembrandts and the Renoirs of the Frick Collection on New York's Fifth Avenue. In this book Peter Watson, art journalist and writer, offers a blend of art and history in his biography of Veronese's masterpiece. In doing so, he places art in the context of the lives of the people devoted to it.