A New York Times best art book of 2022 New insights into the innovative multimedia work and early career of fourteenth-century Italian painter Simone Martini Painter to popes, princes, and scions of Renaissance dynasties, Simone Martini (ca. 1284-1344) transformed Western painting with his groundbreaking devotional images and masterful manipulation of gold. This beautifully illustrated book highlights the astonishing novelty of his paintings in terms of their construction, multimedia techniques, and imagery. A focus of the book-the first on Simone Martini in English in over thirty years-is the work that he produced for churches in the Umbrian city of Orvieto, a papal refuge and stronghold of the Guelph political faction. The publication sheds light on Simone's early career and technical accomplishments with extended catalogue entries for three Orvieto altarpieces and a painting of private devotion, including the results of new scientific analysis for the Gardner works. Leading scholars consider Simone's patrons, artistic accomplishments, and contributions to the development of the polyptych altarpiece. Distributed for the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Exhibition Schedule: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (October 13, 2022-January 16, 2023)

As one of the most innovative and enlightened painters of the early Italian Renaissance, Piero della Francesca knew how to capture the moment. He brought space, luminosity and unparalleled subtlety to painting, during an era that was aware it was forging epochal change. Piero invented the role of the modern artist by becoming a traveller, a courtier, a geometrician, a patron and much else, and his pursuits were taken up by countless authors and artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Giorgio Vasari. In this nuanced account of his life and art, Machtelt Bruggen Israels reconstructs how Piero came of age. Successfully demystifying the persistent notion of Piero's art as enigmatic, she reveals the simple and stunning intentions behind his work.