"Employing a variety of interdisciplinary approaches, from Warburg to Foucault, from documentary history to cultural studies, the author probes the impact of archaeological finds on renaissance consciousnesses. He takes us on an extraordinary intellectual tour that encompasses the rebirth of art history as rediscovered objects confirmed or refuted the written records of antiquity. The result was the reconstruction of history as discursive systems were devised to weave the past into the present and, ultimately, the reconstruction of Renaissance art itself."--BOOK JACKET.