"In this follow-up to his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), Jacob Burckhardt shifts the focus of art history from biography and chronology to the motive forces and conditions governing an artist's creation. Written at the close of Burckhardt's illustrious career, between 1885 and 1893, this discussion of Italian Renaissance painting takes up a variety of artistic genres and subjects, from the celebration of princes and saints to the censure of sinners, from maps of the world to the perfect portrait of a dog."--Jacket.