Arts of Power

Jacob Burckhardt claimed that the state in Renaissance Italy became a work of art. In this book, the authors illiminate the corollary: that art in Italy became a work of state. They study centres of power under three distinctive governments - a civic republic of the 14th century, a princely court of the 15th, and an absolutist state of the 16th. The authors argue that, no less than armies, laws an...