This is the first book which gives a general overview of women as subject-matter in Italian Renaissance painting. The text is divided into five chapters with an introduction, which cover the following themes: women as protagonists of narratives in paintings for domestic furniture; portraiture; the nude; and depictions of female saints. All of these themes are closely linked not only to artistic problems and theory, but also to the social history of the period. The book presents a view of the interaction between artist and patron, and also of the function of these paintings in Italian society of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. using letters, poems, and treatises, it examines through the eyes of the contemporary viewer the way women were represented in paintings.