Jill Burke is AHRB postdoctoral research Fellow in Art History at the University of Edinburgh.

Michael Bury is a Reader, and the Head of History of Art, at the University of Edinburgh.

Contents: Introduction, Jill Burke and Michael Bury; Part 1 Finding Patronage in Early Modern Rome: Roma patria comune? Foreigners in early modern Rome, Irene Fosi; The bishop and the artist: the quest for patronage in high Renaissance Rome, Piers Baker Bates; Between Rome and Ferrara: the courtiers of the Este cardinals in the cinquecento, Guido Guerzoni. Part 2 Cardinals and their Worldly Goods: A cardinal in Rome: Ippoloto d'Este in 1560, Mary Hollingsworth; Patronage rivalries: cardinals Oduardo Farnese and Pietro Aldobrandini, Clare Robertson; Protector and protectorate: cardinal Antonio Barberini's art diplomacy for the French crown at the Papal court, Karin Wolfe. Part 3 Family Identity and the Papacy: Old nobility versus new: Colonna art patronage during the Barberini and Pamphilj pontificates (1623-1655), Christina Strunck; A taste for landscape: Innocent X and Palazzo Pamphilj in Piazza Navona, Susan Russell; Cardinal Camillo Massimo as art agent of the Altieri, Lisa Beaven. Part 4 The Papacy: Individual and Institution: 'Ruined, untended and derelict': 15th-century papal tombs in St Peter's, Carol M. Richardson; Prince and pontiff: secular and spiritual authority in Papal State portraiture between Raphael's Julius II and the portraits if Pius V and Clement VIII, Opher Mansour; Family and institutional identity: galleries of Barberini projects, Maarten Delbeke; Bibliography; Index.

Considering identity creation and artistic development in Rome during this period, this collection adroitly demonstrates how the exceptional quality of Roman court and urban culture interacted with developments in the visual arts. With its distinctive chronological span and uniquely interdisciplinary approach, Art and Identity in Early Modern Rome puts forward an alternative history of the visual arts in early modern Rome, one that questions traditional periodisation and stylistic categorisation.