A major account of Renaissance portraiture by one of the twentieth century's most eminent art historians

In this book, John Pope-Hennessy provides an unprecedented look at two centuries of experiment in portraiture during the Renaissance. Pope-Hennessy shows how the Renaissance cult of individuality brought with it a demand that the features of the individual be perpetuated, a concept first manifested in the portraits that fill the great Florentine fresco cycles and led, later in the fifteenth century, to the creation of the independent portrait by such artists as Sandro Botticelli, Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Giovanni Bellini, and Antonello da Messina. Pope-Hennessy goes on to describe the process by which Titian and the great artists of the High Renaissance transformed the portrait from a record of appearance into an analysis of character.

"Elegant, erudite, and very readable. . . . Concentrating on the stylistic morphology of the portrait and drawing on the whole range of spiritual, cultural, and aesthetic forces that determined its development in these glorious centuries, Mr. Pope-Hennessy is able to show us these artists in a fresh light. . . . [The] book is animated by an admirable intelligence and a fine clarity."---Hilton Kramer, New York Times Book Review