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Historical Echoes of Women's Voices: Music, Art, and Female Patronage in Early Modern Florence by Kelly Harness $14 / Chicago Univ. Press / 2006 Setting aside the more familiar characters such as Catherine and Marie d’Medici, author Kelley Harness, associate professor of musicology at the University of Minnesota, focuses in Echoes of Women’s Voices on the lesser-known females whose patronage helped to make Florence the most brilliant city-state in renaissance Italy. The most energetic patron was Maria Maddalena (1600-1633) whose activities covered a wide cultural range, from commissioning works of art to staging plays and operas. The Medici family ruled Florence between 1434 and 1537. Harness maintains that the influence of female patrons during this time proved their capabilities as rulers and also vitalized the music, art, and drama of Florence. This vitality still marks Florence today as the greatest art center in the world, one where the magnificent paintings and sculptures that the Medici women encouraged can still be seen. Harness has tackled an impressive feat of research in taking an original route through Echoes of Women’s Voices, a well-written, splendidly detailed women’s history of renaissance Florence. — Brenda Ralph Lewiser

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