Customer Reviews

Cosimo de` Medici and the Florentine Renaissance

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4 star:		(1)
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As an art history student working on a thesis concerning the patronage of the Medici family, I have found this monumentally intellectual work to be the best source of both information and explanation, articulately and interestingly stated. I have read at least 40 books, and many many papers written on this subject, none as well done as Ms. Kent. She looks at patronage from a completely different standpoint than almost anybody else has done and worked it beautifully. The fact that the spiritual feeling of the day has been understudied and overlooked and undervalued is very clear and makes the patronage of the Medici very understandable indeed.

Thank you so much Ms. Kent for making my thesis easier to write and giving me so much information I haven't found elsewhere. It is for a colleague of yours. If only I could be as articulate as you, I would be very happy indeed.

I highly recommend this book to any student of Art History who has an interest in the Renaissance.

This is a gorgeously illustrated and beautifully written exploration of Cosimo's patronage and the political, civic, and religious motivations for his many commissions. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Renaissance or art patronage.

I'm one of Kent's students. The introduction is perhaps the most interesting of all: this is a woman who has an intimate knowledge of the Medici. Then again, this book reads like one big Tabloid newspaper: it is a collection of gossip between the family Medici the most powerful family in Renaissance Florence. The unsinkable Cosimo d' Medici wrote volumes of personal correspondence that was never intended to see the light of day. Except this book exposes the family.

It's truly a piece of humanist thinking and worth your florins

As a distinguished historian of ancient science, Francesca Rochberg remarked, do we need another book on the Medici? I think not.