Artistic Exchange and Cultural Translation in the Italian Renaissance City brings together twelve commissioned essays, the impetus for which was the conference that accompanied the exhibition, “Florence and the 1470s: Contexts and Contrasts,” curated by Patricia Rubin and Alison Wright in 1999 at the National Gallery in London. It was during this conference that the importance of the recurring concepts of cultural translation and exchange became evident to Campbell and Milner. The volume scrutinizes these aspects of the artistic and intellectual life of Italian urban cultures in the early modern period. The introduction by the editors, in particular, examines the notions of cultural translation and interpretation, which over the past decade have been explored by scholars of history, anthropology, religious studies, musicology, and comparative studies. And rather than considering each society as hermetic or self-contained, the anthology explores how these cultures interpenetrate, influence, and inform one another. It also questions the notions of conservatism and normativity evident in contemporary studies of Renaissance cultural history, which still exercise a pervasive force in the discipline, particularly the perception of Florence as a touchstone and even as the primogenitor of a wide range of developments in the culture of the peninsula. Moreover, many...