Feast of the Rose Garlands, detail

Early on in my academic career I tended to encourage in my students the view that early Renaissance painters and sculptors were essentially artisans in outlook. Painters were apprenticed, I suggested, and experienced in the craft practices commended by Cennino Cennini in his Craftsman’s Handbook. They had little time or inclination to engage with ideas that circulated in the world beyond the confines of their workshops. Indeed, the need, in Leon Battista Alberti’s view, for painters to be …