The World of the Florentine Renaissance Artist. Projects and Patrons, Workshops and Art Market (Renaissance Society of America Reprint Texts, 18)

Abstract

on reviewing their influence on visual artists no less informed by their contemporaries than by their shared classical sources.To be sure, Vanacker's book is dense; her occasional tangents at times obscure her arguments. Not unlike Tansillo in Bruno's Eroici furori, she often relies on her reader to anticipate her take-home-message. Indeed, until her last pages, readers are left to wonder what greater implication about the Italian literary tradition can result from her tireless work. Her conclusion, however, does not disappoint. There, she postulates potential reasons for the privileging of the Actaeon myth in the earlier centuries of the Italian literary tradition, as opposed to Adonis's myth in later centuries. Her assumptions speak to previously mentioned issues of literary tastes, literary practices, and readership. The debate she points to in chapter six on authenticity in literary production-or the "risemantizzazione [di una] fonte" (303)-further amplifies her closing comments. Perhaps most interestingly, however, in this exceptionally executed book, Vanacker raises many more questions about the importance of hunting myths as a keystone of Italian literary production throughout the ages than she answers, leading the way for inspired scholars to add to her work, much in the way the authors she studies often fill in the gaps left by their literary predecessors.