Piero di Cosimos bizarre paintings inspired the Surrealists and are celebrated in Sarah Blake McHams myth-busting new study . . . In her informative study Piero di Cosimo, the artist, less celebrated than his direct peers Botticelli, Leonardo and Michelangelo, appears as an underappreciated figure in the history of Renaissance art . . . In Blake McHams hands, the full scope of Pieros talent is explored . . . This book does a wonderful job of exploring Pieros context . . . Without the facts required to write a biography, this is a delightful, diligent study of the most playful, surprising artist of the Renaissance. -- Francesca Peacock * Daily Telegraph * McHams monograph on Piero di Cosimo is a welcome addition to the sparse research on this interesting and idiosyncratic Italian Renaissance painter. Beginning with Giorgio Vasaris assessment of Pieros art, McHam organizes Piero's career by content, from his most popular genre mythological and legendary scenes to portraits and religious works. Recommended. * Choice * Sarah Blake McHam takes the reader back to the delighted experiences of Piero di Cosimos first viewers, who not only enjoyed his artworks' physical beauty but the conversation and learned intellectual exchanges that they originally provoked. McHam discusses Pieros paintings by type mythologies, altarpieces, portraits and clarifies the demands that each placed on the artist, bringing the reader close to Pieros creative process. This book will re-insert Pieros unusual paintings into the mainstream of Renaissance art history. * John T. Paoletti, Emeritus Professor of Art History, Wesleyan University * In clear and compelling prose, Sarah Blake McHam situates Piero in his time without ever losing sight of his arts strange poetry, ranging from the marvelous to the disarmingly prosaic, be it the depiction of a delicate lapis lazuli vase or the bristly silhouette of an errant pig. While prone to pictorial joking and the most unconventional transformations of Greco-Roman myth, Piero is reaffirmed by McHam as nothing if not successful, all the more so for his originality and daring. * Dennis Geronimus, Professor of Italian Renaissance Art and Chair of the Department of Art History, New York University *