Surpassing classical interpretations, Jill Burke's ambitious volume examines the concept of the Italian Renaissance nude over the course of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (1400s–1530s). Carefully considering a plethora of contemporary texts and a wealth of visual sources, Burke sheds new light on the cultural frames through which nakedness was perceived on the Italian peninsula. Burke places nudes in various media—be they print, sculpture, fresco, or painting—and in diverse contexts, stressing in what way these images were perceived and why they mattered to certain, mostly elite, segments of society.

The book, which aims to reconnect the nude to our (often) wrongly trained eye, is organized in five well-structured chapters based on a true treasure of visual material and documentary sources. After a concise summary of the book's major points, in which it becomes clear that the current historiography lacks general interest in the Italian nude, apart from the nude Christ, chapter 1 focuses on the attitude toward nakedness during the fifteenth century. Joining together classical and contemporary texts, such as Cicero's On the Nature of God and Vergil's On Discovery, Burke traces the social meaning of being without clothing, and argues that being naked denoted punishment and sexual temptation but was equally tolerated in the cases of children and men at work in Florentine streets, harbors, and building sites. Chapter 2 narrates the shift in attitudes toward the depictions of naked bodies during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Nakedness—in, for example, the depiction of allegories—is seen to be displaying moral qualities such as virtue and, hence, becomes acceptable for the elite period eye. This point is validated through an examination of Lorenzetti's inspiring Allegory of Good and Bad Government (ca. 1338–40), among other works. Moving into the sixteenth century, private patrons such as Isabella d'Este, operating in Mantua, tended to stop looking for the moral qualities in the depiction of the nude and, instead, started to appreciate the artistic skill needed to portray a nude body. The ability to expertly portray an unclothed body became a sought-after skill mastered by such greats as Michelangelo and Raphael. Chapter 3 continues this line of inquiry by examining both the importance of being able to skillfully represent the Italian nude and the quest among artists and scientists alike to retrieve/create the perfect body—a quest that saw its apotheosis, most particularly, with the depiction of Michelangelo's ignudi in the Sistine Chapel. In chapter 4, Burke turns her attention to the emergence of the female nude in sixteenth-century Italy. As a result of new and societally accepted ways of looking at beauty, championed by illustrious authors such as Baldassare Castiglione and Ludovico Ariosto, men were (re)taught/educated to look at beautiful women. This (re)acquaintance with women meant they were represented en masse as sitters, in the shape of portraits or as archetypes of ancient allure—in the guise of Venus, for example, a type perfected by Titian. Guided by the concept of otium, or leisure, the final chapter explores the visual grandeur in which the nude had become a centerpiece. Pictured in bucolic settings on the walls of lavish places such as the Villa Chigi, now Farnesina, in Rome, the female nude, in the shape of Psyche (1517–18), had become a conversation piece among the Italian male elite that enjoyed Raphael's mastery, and, in the pursuit of aesthetic pleasure, simultaneously made themselves the kind of well-rounded individuals described by Castiglione in his fanatically read Book of the Courtier. Nude women, cleverly, made a lasting, nurturing, and wise impression.

Burke's book amounts to an elaborate and essential study of the Italian Renaissance nude, a reading that could, as she hints, be even further explored by including the influence of Northern Renaissance artists. Her contribution is a thorough examination that is not only an excellent and welcome basis for further research but also a work that promises to stand the test of scholarly time.