Jonathan Alexander has been for many years an eminent scholar of manuscript illumination. His book Medieval Illuminators and Their Methods of Work (1992) is still an indispensable tool for teachers and students of medieval manuscripts. Alexander has also played a leading role in promoting Italian Renaissance illumination among anglophone audiences with a series of important publications and a landmark exhibition, The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450–1550 (1994). Alexander’s lavishly illustrated The Painted Book in Renaissance Italy is the first comprehensive survey to be published on the subject. In the first four chapters (Tuscany, Central and Southern Italy, Northeast Italy, Northwest Italy), Alexander takes us on a journey to look at the production and consumption of luxury manuscripts in every important cultural and political center across the peninsula in the period 1450–1500. This represents a challenging task, since illuminators often traveled around and important patrons often purchased manuscripts produced elsewhere. However, Alexander successfully meets the challenge by focusing on the most relevant aspects of scholarship for each city, and by weaving themes such as patronage and stylistic development into the main geographical and chronological narrative.

The journey starts in Florence with the beginnings of all’antica border decoration, humanist script, and linear perspective. For Naples and Ferrara, Alexander focuses on the commissions of the ruling families, highlighting patterns of artistic collaboration. Venice and Padua are pertinently discussed under the same heading, starting with Squarcione and his most influential pupil, Mantegna, to show how the Paduan antiquarian style flourished in Venice under the auspices of enlightened patrons such as Lodovico Trevisan. For Milan, Alexander shows how the courtly style favored by the Visconti evolved under the patronage of the Sforza, assimilating innovations from Florence and Padua. In between the main centers, Alexander takes us to places where production or acquisition of manuscripts was then less significant, and also to places like Cremona, which despite not being a main political center was important for manuscript production. In chapter 5, Alexander revisits the most important cities to show us how illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the sixteenth century, even if fewer in number, and how the monumentality of the High Renaissance was assimilated into manuscript illumination, notably in the work of Giulio Clovio.

The following chapters are thematic. Chapter 6 is about hand illumination of early printed books. Alexander discusses here some outstanding examples of this short-lived genre, including the stunning volumes illuminated by Girolamo da Cremona and Benedetto Bordon for Peter Ugelheimer (183–88). In the following chapters, Alexander weaves together the research presented in the previous chapters to discuss general issues, such as methods of production, patronage, style, and the relationships between illumination and the other arts.

The main strengths of Alexander’s book are, first, the very high standards of scholarship; second, the range of manuscripts included; and, third, the manner in which a panorama of illumination in Renaissance Italy is gradually built up by highlighting the most significant links in patronage and artistic developments across the peninsula. As to weaknesses, two matters, I believe, must be raised. First, the first four chapters would have benefited from including more discussion as to the influence of Netherlandish painting on Italian illumination, especially for Rome and Ferrara. Second, even if the scope of the book is limited to luxury manuscripts, it would have been useful for readers (especially for students) to be briefly introduced to the wider landscape of book production and consumption in fifteenth-century Italy. In relation to Florence, for instance, Alexander recognizes that his account “provides only an outline of the major commissions” (28), and mentions that “drawings … sometimes enriched with simple colour washes” and the use of paper are “a sign of a less expensive commission” (31). Alexander could have referred here, for example, to the study by Christian Bec, Les livres des florentins (1984), to show that even humble families owned one book or two; also, it would have been edifying to mention that many Florentines copied and illustrated manuscripts for their own use (see Dale Kent, Cosimo de Medici and the Florentine Renaissance [2000], 69–80). Nonetheless, despite these two minor weaknesses, The Painted Book in Renaissance Italy is a magnificent achievement and will remain a major reference work for many years to come.