About the Author

Douglas Biow is Professor of Italian & Comparative Literature, Director of the Center for European Studies, and Superior Oil Company Linward Shivers Centennial Professor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of The Culture of Cleanliness in Renaissance Italy (2006).

Reviews

"The fascinating case studies of In Your Face ... offer stimulus and insight not only to historians of creativity and artistic production, but to scholars interested in the inexhaustible question as to how individual identity was conditioned by, and influenced, contemporary society." - Nicholas A. Eckstein, European History Quarterly "This is a book to read and also to revisit for subsequent readings ... Students of the Italian Renaissance will find much that is at once familiar and fresh in this intriguing volume." - Patrice Ross, Sixteenth Century Journal "A new take on the much mentioned self-fashioning in The Renaissance is to be found in Douglas Biow's remarkable book In Your Face ... Here we are introduced to Italian masters such as Aretino, Castiglione, Cellini, Anton Francesco Doni, and Michelangelo as they promote not only their artistic works but their individual careers." - Bibliotheque d'humanisme et renaissance "Biow offers many thoughtful and insightful readings of both literary texts and artistic images, and his approach is a testimony to his ability to cross disciplines and unite the literary, the art historical, and the historical." - George McClure, American Historical Review "This latest book is [Biow's] most original and challenging contribution yet." - S. Botterill, Choice