This book builds on the foundational studies of Schlosser, Panofsky, Garin, Baxandall, and Blunt who traced the intellectual emancipation of the visual arts in Renaissance Italy, while responding to more recent scholarship on rhetoric, pedagogy, and art theory (Van Eck, Dressen, Ames-Lewis).

Unlike earlier treatments that isolate individual authors or emphasise social history, this study reframes Renaissance art treatises – by Cennini, Alberti, Leonardo, Varchi, and Vasari – as a coherent sub-genre of humanistic educational literature. By highlighting their pedagogical, rhetorical, and Aristotelian foundations, it uncovers the ways these texts forged a new ontological system that integrated the visual arts into the liberal arts.

The book’s contribution lies in bridging art history, intellectual history, and literary studies, demonstrating how artistic literature both drew from and reshaped humanist discourse. In doing so, it addresses disciplinary fragmentation and repositions Renaissance art theory within the broader genealogy of the Humanities.