This definitive volume explores the life and masterworks of the artist whose name is synonymous with Venetian Renaissance painting. In his seventies, Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430-1516) was described by the German master Albrecht Durer as "very old, but still the best painter of all" and modern art historians agree that he was the most inventive of the Northern Italian painters.

Giovanni, the youngest of the three Bellini artists, was the Doge's chief painter and the teacher of Titian, Giorgione, and dozens of others. He showed great imagination and versatility in producing numerous Madonna paintings for churches and private patrons, exquisitely calibrating his style for a variety of commissions from small devotional works to huge altarpieces.

Giovanni Bellini's paintings - prized works in the collections of major museums throughout America and Europe - are presented here in full-color photography to complement Anchise Tempestini's thorough and lucid text. An opening essay placing the painter in his historical and art-historical context is followed by twenty-five short essays on paintings of major importance, illustrated with enlarged details.

The book closes with a catalogue raisonne of all Bellini's works, a bibliography, and indexes of works and their locations.