Art Markets in Europe, 1400-1800. Michael North , David OrmrodWith and without the Medici: Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434-1530. Eckart Marchand , Alison Wright
Eckart Marchand and Alison Wright, eds., With and Without the Medici: Studies in Tuscan Art and Patronage 1434-1530 Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998. xiv + 187 pp. $84.95. ISBN: 1-85928-423-X. One of the most marked developments of the last quarter century in the fields of Renaissance and Baroque art history has been the rising interest in the circumstances surrounding die production and consumption of art. Social, economic, and art historians who have chosen to focus on these dimensions have broadened the boundaries of the discipline to encompass images and objects outside of the traditional triad of painting, sculpture, and architecture; expanded the types of evidence used to discuss art and artists; highlighted the social and cultural functions of art; and elucidated the role played by market forces, such as pressures for innovation, efficiency, and quality, in the production, distribution, collection, and evaluation of images. Furthermore, these studies have drawn attention to the ways in which the broader economic and social community influenced the manner in which the men and women who produced art made a living, offering an alternative to the concept of the isolated, canonically masculine, genius. Two collections of essays recently published by Ashgate touch on these concepts.