Knights of Art: Stories of the Italian Painters

Historian and author Amy Steedman was captivated not only by the beauty and grandeur of the Italian Renaissance painters but also by the drama and spectacle of the lives they lived. Working with the Lives of the Painters by Vasari as her foundation, Steedman set out to create a simplified version, exploring the fascinating characters who have given us some of the finest examples of human endeavour and aesthetic brilliance the world has ever seen. Published in 1907, Knights of Art: Stories of Italian Painters collects the biographies of such artists as Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Fraud Angelico and Giotto, offering an interesting glimpse into their inspirations, motivations, hardships, and triumphs. This would be Steedman’s second major work after In God’s Garden two years previously. She would go on to author many more volumes, covering subject matter as diverse as art, biblical tales and the natural world. She would return to cover more of the life stories of famous artists three years later, with 1910’s Stories of the Painters, but Knights of Art remains one of her best-known texts.