"You are what you own. So believed many of the most magnificent men and women of Renaissance Italy. This notion that a person's belongings transmit something about their personal history, status, and "character" was reappraised in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Objects of Virtue explores the multiple meanings and values of the objects with which families like the Medici, Este, and Gonzaga surrounded themselves. It examines, for the first time, the complicated relationships between the so-called "fine arts"--Painting and sculpture - and artifacts of other kinds for which artistry might be as important as utility - furniture, jewelry, and vessels made of gold, silver, and ceramic. The works explored were designed and made by artists as famous as Andrea Mantegna, Raphael, and Michelangelo, as well as by lesser-known specialists - goldsmiths, gem-engravers, glassmakers, and maiolica painters."--Jacket.