The Berenson Collection: A Guide

A DECADE IN THE MAKING , ten pounds in weight, and eight hundred pages in length, The Bernard and Mary Berenson Collection of European Paintings at I Tatti, edited by Carl Brandon Strehlke and Machtelt Brüggen Israëls (Florence, 2015) is finally out. That this is an exceptionally beautiful book with superb color illustrations and elegant layout and typography will be evident to anyone who takes it in hand. Forty-five authors, from the senior statesmen of Renaissance art to a new generation of scholars, wrote entries on 110 older paintings in addition to thirty-nine works by the Berensons’ contemporaries and related material, both real and fake. A bibliography of three thousand items is joined with research in the archives of dozens of museums, collectors, and dealers, not least those at I Tatti. Erudition on this scale in a single tome is rare. The book is an alp. The downside of weightiness is that the catalog risks sitting on the shelf, admired by all but consulted only by specialists. This would be sad since it is surprisingly readable and has exciting material. My aim here is to offer a guide for the curious. The book took me a month to read, but it can be delved into with profit even for a spare half hour here and there or a summer’s afternoon. Visitors who are impressed with the general atmosphere of the house but confused by the dozens of unfamiliar artists’ names can use it to put order into their impressions. In particular, I want to show fellows at the Harvard Center who will be living with the collection for an extended period how to use the book. It does not have