This book is a panoramic view of the richest 300 years of Italian art: the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which saw the creation of a constellation of masterpieces of painting and sculpture that has influenced art history for generations. The 1500s saw the era of the great Renaissance masters da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, as well as the innovators of the mannerist style, del Sarto and Pontormo, and brilliant painters from the Venetian school including Giorgione, Titian, and Lotto.
The northern artistic schools arose in the 1600s, led by Carracci, Reni, Guercino, and Domenichino. Included here are works by the revolutionary Caravaggio. Papal Rome is well represented by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona.
The 1700s feature landscape artists including Canaletto, Bellotto, and Guardi, and from the Rococo period, Tiepolo and Gandolfi with sculptures by Canova and Giani.