Early Renaissance artists gradually gained respect for their work. This text explores how Mantegna, da Vinci, Raphael, Durer and others gained respect and artistic autonomy from their patrons by promoting the idea of the artist as a creative genius with a distinct identity and individuality.[...]
Isabella d'Este, the marchioness of Mantua, was a collector of antiquities, a patron of art, and one of the most vivid personalities of the Italian Renaissance. Her artistic relationship with Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is charted through the letters that they exchanged over the course of about si[...]