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Rating: 
Summary: Confusing
Review: I bought this book with great expectations. Not only the information about the artists suffers from being extremely sketchy but it is also in some places strange. "X Y Z was friendly with so and so...." Does that mean that mean that XYZ collaborated with so and so or that the 2 were just friends? 'Pordenone' is constantly spelled as 'Porderone', hence it is not a simple typographical error. The so-called relationships at the end of the book are no more that confusing and bizarre grafitti. I doubt this book can be of any help to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing
Review: I bought this book with great expectations. Not only the information about the artists suffers from being extremely sketchy but it is also in some places strange. "X Y Z was friendly with so and so...." Does that mean that mean that XYZ collaborated with so and so or that the 2 were just friends? 'Pordenone' is constantly spelled as 'Porderone', hence it is not a simple typographical error. The so-called relationships at the end of the book are no more that confusing and bizarre grafitti. I doubt this book can be of any help to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: I'm mystified
Review: I'm mystified how this book could possibly be of any help to anyone wanting to learn about the Renaissance or the artists of the period. There is a chronology and some very short bios but the whole purpose of the "handbook" seems to be to support the author's bizarre "graphics" which purport to illustrate the influence of one painter or school on another. These so-called graphics resemble the graffiti that might have been found in the men's room of the Cedar Tavern during the heyday of the Abstract Expressionists. There are some nice but small color repros that the skimpy text does nothing to serve, otherwise, I can think of nothing good to say about this mistitled work at all.
Rating: 
Summary: Compact information - Great for travellers and students
Review: The book gives an excellent overview of Italian renaissance painters and their mutual relationships. In addition to the compact but exhaustive (and sometimes humorous) text part and large number of full color reprints of Renaissance pictures, the interactions between the painters are also illustrated graphically, which allows for a fast classification of painters. For example, an arrow indicates the fact that Michelangelo studied painting in the workshop of Ghirlandaio. The graphics illustrate the interaction between hundreds of painters, which make them somewhat perplexing at the first glance (it took me about an hour to really understand what was going on :-), but extremely helpful when confronted with an unknown renaissance painter, e.g. in a museum. I found this book to be an excellent companion for me on a trip to Florence (I had the German version of the book with me). I'd recommend the book to everybody who is interested in Italian art and who likes to visit museums (or Italian churches, palazzi, ...).
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