Jacob Burckhardt's 1860 assertion that commitment to beauty was a defining characteristic of Italian Renaissance culture has been widely accepted but little has been done to define the concept of beauty. This text reveals the diverse ways of perceiving, conceiving and creating beauty in the period.

The volume is introduced by Elizabeth Cropper who offers an historical overview of art historians' study of the Renaissance concept of beauty. Many of the papers were first presented at the 1996 Association of Art Historians' conference.

The biographical basis of Renaissance aesthetics, John Onians
the perception of beauty in landscape in the quattrocento, Alison Cole
"condecenti et netti" - beauty, dress and gender in Italian Renaissance art, Jane Bridgeman
Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti and a practical definition of magnificence in the context of Renaisssance architecture, Rupert Shepherd
beauty as an aesthetic and artistic ideal in late 15th-century Florence, David Hemsolt
defining the beautiful in early Renaissance Germany, Andrew Morrall
the artist as beauty, Mary Rogers
"la piu bella e melio lavarata opera" - beauty and good design in Italian Renaissance architecture, Georgia Clarke
poetry in motion - beauty in movement and the Renaissance conception of leggiadria, Sharon Fermor
resplendent vessels - Parmigianino at work in the Steccata, Mary Vaccaro
Michalangelo's Christian neoplatonic aesthetic of beauty in his early ouevre - the nuditas virtualis image, Joanne Snow-Smith
Venetian glass and Renaissance self-fashioning, Paul Hills
Vasari's interpretation of female beauty, Liana de Girolami Cheney
the notion of beauty in Francesco Bocchi's "Bellezze della citta di Fiorenza" I, Thomas Frangenberg
the notion of beauty in Francesco Bocchi's "Bellezze della citta di Fiorenza" II, Robert Williams.