Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture offers new and original insights into the sculpture produced primarily in Florence, but in other regions as well, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Focusing on the achievements of such artists as Donatello and Michelangelo, this volume demonstrates how the methodologies of cultural anthropology, aesthetics, conservation, political theory, gender studies, and literary analysis, among others, can be successfully applied to the study of sculpture. Among the themes explored in this collection of eleven essays are the relationship of sculpture to nature, as well as to the cultures of Greece and Rome; the role of patronage; the development of new forms, such as statuettes and portraiture; and the creation of public monuments as vehicles for propaganda. Also emphasized are the techniques of creating sculpture in a variety of media, including bronze, marble, wood, stucco, and terracotta.