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A beautifully illustrated history of the Renaissance bringing to life the vices and virtues of the feuding ruling families of Italy and the most important and influential patrons. From the glittering to the at times rather gory, we are transported to the life and times of the elite whose power and patronage created the art and architecture of the Renaissance. Hollingsworth sets their aesthetic achievements in the context of the volatile, ever-shifting politics of a tumultuous period of history. From the late Middle Ages, the independent Italian city-states were taken over by powerful families who installed themselves as dynastic rulers. Inspired by the humanists, the princes of 15th and 16th century Italy immerse themselves in the culture of antiquity, commissioning palaces, villas and churches, inspired by the architecture of Ancient Rome, and offering patronage to artists and writers. Many of these princes were related by blood or marriage, creating a web of alliances that held society together, but whose tensions sometimes threatened to tear it apart. Their lives were defined as much by the waging of war as the nurturing of artistic talent. Hollingsworth charts these developments in a sequence of chronological chapters, each centred on two or three main characters from Ludovico Sforza of Milan to Isabella d'Este of Mantua, from Pope Paul III to Emperor Charles V, from painters Mantegna and Titian to the architect Sansovino and the polymath Leonardo da Vinci. Other names include Sigismondo Malatesta, Barbara of Brandenburg, the doge Andrea Gritti and his cronies and Cosimo d'Medici. With useful genealogical trees, tables and maps, a super heavyweight beautifully designed 512 page hardback with full page colour plates throughout of paintings, sculpture and architecture.