San Antonio College Library

"Giovanni Bellini's St. Francis in the Desert is a masterpiece of Venetian Renaissance art that has inspired generations of visitors to The Frick Collection. This monumental panel painting portrays Francis of Assisi, the medieval Christian saint who renounced earthly riches to embrace a humble existence of poverty, prayer, and obedience to the Gospels. Departing from canonical representations of the holy man's life and miracles, Bellini has imagined...

"This knowledgeable, useful and up-to-date survey of one of the greatest periods in Western painting, from Masaccio through Titian, covers some fifty artists and their work and includes nearly 400 illustrations integrated with the text. James Beck of Columbia University gives biographical information on each artist and discusses and analyzes his artistic style, achievement and most significant works." /