Artistic genius set in stone

La Pietà by Michelangelo

Isabella d’Este, Marchioness of Mantua, bargained, cajoled and went behind her family’s back to get what she desired. Meet 16th-century Italy’s most formidable collector

Exhibition of the week Jenny Saville: The Anatomy ...

Life’s pleasures immortalized in a marble sculpture

At his studio fringed by the mountains of Klosters, Swiss sculptor Christian Bolt is feverishly cooking up recipes to re-create terra secca , a material used in Renaissance Italy, not only to expand his own artistic horizons, but to help save the planet

In her latest novel, Sarah Dunant explores the life of Italian aristocrat Isabella d’Este, the archetypal Renaissance woman