General Reading.--The culture of Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is best treated by BURCKHARDT, _The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy_ (The Macmillan Company, $4.00). This is especially adapted for the rather advanced student. The towns are interestingly described in SYMONDS, _Age of Despots_ (Scribner's Sons, $2.00). For Florence and the Medici, see ARMSTRONG, _Lorenzo de' Medici and Florence in the Fifteenth Century_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50). MACHIAVELLI'S _Prince_ may be had in translation (Clarendon Press, $1.10). The best prose translation of DANTE'S _Divine Comedy_ is that of Charles Eliot Norton (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 3 vols., $4.50). In ROBINSON and ROLFE, _Petrarch the First Modern Scholar and Man of Letters_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $2.00), the reader will find much material to illustrate the beginnings of humanism. The volume consists mainly of Petrarch's own letters to his friends. The introduction gives a much fuller account of his work than it was possible to include in the present volume. For similar material from other writers of the time, see WHITCOMB, _A Literary Source Book of the Italian Renaissance_ (Philadelphia, $1.00). The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini is a very amusing and instructive book by one of the well-known artists of the sixteenth century. Roscoe's translation in the Bohn series (The Macmillan Company, $1.00) is to be recommended for school libraries. The greatest of the sources for the lives of the artists is VASARI, _Lives of Seventy of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects_. This may be had in the Temple Classics (The Macmillan Company, 8 vols., 50 cents each) or a selection of the more important lives admirably edited in Blashfield and Hopkins' carefully annotated edition (Scribner's Sons, 4 vols., $8.00). Vasari was a contemporary of Michael Angelo and Cellini, and writes in a simple and charming style. The outlines of the history of the various branches of art, with ample bibliographies, are given in the "College Histories of Art," edited by John C. Van Dyke; viz., VAN DYKE, _The History of Painting_, HAMLIN, _The History of Architecture_, and MARQUAND and FROTHINGHAM, _The History of Sculpture_ (Longmans, Green & Co., each $2.00). Larger works with more illustrations, which might be found in any good town library are: FERGUSSON, _History of Modern Architecture_, LÜBKE, _History of Sculpture_, WOLTMANN and WOERMANN, _History of Painting_, and FLETCHER, _A History of Architecture_. Two companies publish very inexpensive reproductions of works of art: the so-called Perry pictures at a cent apiece, and the still better Cosmos pictures (Cosmos Picture Company, New York), costing somewhat more.