Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy

Rating:
Summary: genious
Review: This book is perhaps the definitive intellectual work on power relationships within Renaissance Italy. Power and imagination in the City-States formed in a reciprocal relationship. Artistry oft relected what patrons desired more than anything else. Patronage kept the purse and told painters exactly what to paint and even allocated how much of what paint to use. Thus great works of art and intellect not so much reflected the imaginative genious of individuals as the pull from strings of power. The irony is that this gave birth to intellectual freedom. Martinez is a true genious in telling the theoretical as well as practical implications of this.