Sassetta, the subtle genius from Siena, revolutionized Italian painting with an altarpiece for the small Tuscan town of Borgo San Sepolcro in 1437 1444. Originally standing some six yards high, double-sided, with a splendid gilt frame over the main altar of the local Franciscan church, it was the Rolls Royce of early Renaissance painting. But its myriad figures and scenes tempted the collectors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and today its disassembled panels can be found in twelve museums throughout Europe and the United States.

To produce this landmark volume, experts in art and general history, painting technique and conservation, woodworking, architecture, and liturgy have joined forces across the boundaries of eight different nations. A model of collaboration, it opens new windows onto the creative process of the artist as he confronted a late-medieval church at a crossroad of cultures, the miracle-working body of a holy man, and a community of Franciscan friars breathing the exhilarating air of reform. To confront such challenges, Sassetta raised the most spiritual school of early Italian art, the Sienese, to a higher level of understanding, grace, and splendor.

The 177 essays in these two richly illustrated volumes represent the cutting edge of Italian Renaissance scholarship in nearly every one of its fields and were gathered to honor Joseph Connors, Director of Villa I Tatti from 2002 to 2010. Demonstrating I Tatti's pivotal role as the world's leading center for Italian Renaissance studies, the essays cover all the branches of art history, as well as many aspects of political, economic, and social history, literature, and music, from the early Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Appropriately, the volumes also include a selection of contributions devoted to Bernard Berenson and his legacy as both a collector and a scholar. Each of the authors-a group representing dozens of countries-was a Fellow or associate of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies during the eight years in which Connors served as Director.