This highly-illustrated book emphasizes above all the diversity of the Italian Renaissance in the period between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries: the enormously varied forms of cultural achievement and the different circumstances that prevailed in various contexts, both urban and courtly. Richard MacKenney examines why the great revival did not touch the whole of Italy or the majority of its people. He argues that, while the wonder and joy of classical rebirth remained vivid, there was also a dimension of anxiety, especially in the challenge that ancient cultures posed to Christian belief.