Roberto Longhi (1890-1970) is regarded by the Italians as their most important conoisseur, critic and art historian; at the same time he is read and enjoyed for his great and magical gifts as a prose stylist. Little from Longhi's vast corpus has been translated into English. Three Studies, a book of his crucial essays Masolino and Masaccio, Caravaggio and His Forerunners, and Carlo Braccaesco, was published in 1995 by Sheep Meadow and now Piero della Francesca.

It is wonderful to have in English these three essays by Roberto Longhi. With the exception of Walter Pater, it is difficult to think of a critic whose work is so close to the art it embraces that it becomes itself a kind of art. Yet Pater's criticism is always on the verge of metamorphosing into poetry. With Longhi, the scholar and the poet are seamlessly fused, resulting in prose that is palpable and radiant as the Renaissance paintings he describes so meticulously: an object of rare beauty indeed.'- --John Ashbery

Contains three essays by the Italian art critic, connoisseur, and historian, whose work is at once scholarly and novelistic, employing imaginary dialogues between artists, poetic description, and humor. Includes color and b&w illustrations. For students and scholars. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc