It may be useful to start this book by making clear what it is not. The term ‘Renaissance’ is used in academic and everyday discourse in two senses. First, it is used to denote a cultural movement or tradition, centring on the recuperation of classical literature, art, and thought. Second, it is sometimes used to denote an ‘age’, or a chronological period (in the case of Italy, generally from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century; in northern Europe, generally later). This book takes ‘Renaissance’ in the first sense of the term. No attempt is made here to summarize the social, economic, religious, or political history of Italy from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century in a systematic way, although mention is made of salient developments that impacted on cultural production. The chapters of this book are not organized in a chronologically narrated sequence, nor a geographical one, covering developments in the various Italian states. Instead, they take the freer form of thematic essays on key aspects of Renaissance culture, in a way that enables a deeper exploration than a book that aims at ‘coverage’ can afford.