The Works of Mercy in Italian Medieval Art (c.1050-c.1400)

This is the first monograph on the medieval Italian representations of the corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy, the fourteen basic categories of almsdeeds conceived by the scholastics. This is a genuinely interdisciplinary study: Federico Botana has painstakingly dissected frescoes, panel paintings, miniatures, and sculptures of the Works of Mercy to shed new light on fundamental aspects of medieval society. These depictions reveal how communities took care of their needy, in some instances be…