In the first book systematically to give evidence of conjugal co-rule at an Italian Renaissance court, and the first full length scholarly study of Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga, Sarah Cockram shows their relationship in an entirely new light. The book draws on (and presents) a large amount of unpublished archival material, including almost unprecedented surviving correspondence between and around these Renaissance princely rulers. Using these sources, Cockram shows Isabella and Francesco's strategic teamwork in action, illuminating tactics of collaboration and dissimulation. She also reveals behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity; court procedures; sexual politics and seduction; gift-giving and network-building; rivalries, intrigues and assassinations. Several epistolary themes emerge: insights into the couple's communication practices and double-dealing, their use of intermediaries, and attention to security matters. This book's analysis of Isabella's co-rule with her husband, supported by other members of the Gonzaga dynasty, sees her sometimes in the role of subordinate partner, sometimes guiding the couple's actions. It shows how, despite appearances at times, the couple shared common diplomatic policy as well as human, material, and cultural resources; joint administration; and the exercise of authority and justice. Thus emerges a three-dimensional picture of the mechanisms of power and power sharing in the age of Machiavelli.

The marriage of Isabella d'Este, one of the most famous figures of the Italian Renaissance, and Francesco Gonzaga, ruler of the small northern Italian principality of Mantua (r.1484-1519) offers a fascinating portrait of early modern political marriage - a relationship born from strategic alliance, but built on cooperation and mutual respect.

Giovanni Bellini (ca. 1435–1516), widely considered the greatest Venetian artist of his time, was born into the most influential artistic family in Venice. He received his training in the studio of his father, Jacopo, along with his brother, Gentile, and through a long and fruitful career played a leading role in defining the Renaissance style in Venice. His workshop, one of the most important of the period, counted Giorgione and Titian among its pupils. The first account of his life, by Giorgio Vasari, also portrays the family artistic enterprise; it appeared in Vasari’s seminal Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, published in 1550 and revised and expanded in 1568. A century later Carlo Ridolfi, who sought to rectify Vasari’s emphasis on Florentine painters, provides a fuller portrayal of Bellini in his 1648 work The Marvels of Art, or the Lives of the Famous Painters of Venice and Its State. These two narratives are complemented in this book by Marco Boschini’s poetic homage to the artist and by correspondence between the renowned Renaissance patron of the arts Isabella d'Este, Bellini, and others regarding the commission of a painting for her celebrated studiolo in Mantua. Ridolfi’s biography, Boschini’s poem, and the Isabella d’Este correspondence appear here in English for the first time. Full-page color illustrations throughout the book represent the full sweep of Bellini’s career.

In the first book systematically to give evidence of conjugal co-rule at an Italian Renaissance court, and the first full length scholarly study of Isabella d'Este and Francesco Gonzaga, Sarah Cockram shows their relationship in an entirely new light. The book draws on (and presents) a large amount of unpublished archival material, including almost unprecedented surviving correspondence between and around these Renaissance princely rulers. Using these sources, Cockram shows Isabella and Francesco's strategic teamwork in action, illuminating tactics of collaboration and dissimulation. She also reveals behind-the-scenes diplomatic activity; court procedures; sexual politics and seduction; gift-giving and network-building; rivalries, intrigues and assassinations. Several epistolary themes emerge: insights into the couple's communication practices and double-dealing, their use of intermediaries, and attention to security matters. This book's analysis of Isabella's co-rule with her husband, supported by other members of the Gonzaga dynasty, sees her sometimes in the role of subordinate partner, sometimes guiding the couple's actions. It shows how, despite appearances at times, the couple shared common diplomatic policy as well as human, material, and cultural resources; joint administration; and the exercise of authority and justice. Thus emerges a three-dimensional picture of the mechanisms of power and power sharing in the age of Machiavelli.

The Renaissance studiolo was a space devoted in theory to private reading. The most famous studiolo of all was that of Isabella d'Este, marchioness of Mantua. This work explores the function of the mythological image within a Renaissance culture of collectors.