Art Patronage, Family, and Gender in Renaissance Florence: The Tornabuoni. Maria DePrano. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xxxii + 420 pp. $135.
without such linguistic ability, especially undergraduates, have lacked access to this indispensable source. With the publication of the volume under review, however, we now have a superb English translation of the Dialogo, which will certainly fulfill the editors’ mission of “open[ing] this fascinating text—and the important questions it raises —to as wide an audience as possible” (3). A brief introduction and three essays precede the translated text. The first essay, by Michael Bury, presents as much as can be reconstructed about Gilio and the origins of his treatise; considers the scope of the Dialogo, with an emphasis on sacred painting and issues of decorum; and situates the text in relation to the Council of Trent’s decree on sacred images. Carol M. Richardson then takes up the critical reception of Gilio’s treatise among recent art historians, revisits the relationship between the Dialogo and the Tridentine decree, and—perhaps most importantly—underscores the extent to which, through the dialogue structure, Gilio is able to present multiple perspectives, both in praise and in censure of Michelangelo’s fresco, without necessarily arriving at definitive conclusions. And Lucinda Byatt (a professional translator) discusses the original edition of Gilio’s treatise, language issues and other significant challenges faced by the translator(s), and the fictional context (place and time) in which the dialogue is set. In addition to extensive notes that clarify and augment the translation, a short section presents the dramatis personae (the interlocutors) in theDialogo and their points of view within the debate, a glossary defines key Italian terms that figure prominently in the text, and an index and thirty-five illustrations of works discussed (or relevant to the text) round out the critical apparatus of what is unquestionably a welcome addition to the Getty’s Texts & Documents series.