The Medici were responsible for the majority of Florentine art during their reign.

As earlier with Perugino and others, Raphael was able to assimilate the influence of Florentine art, whilst keeping his own developing style.

His main figures stand upright and still in the older Venetian style, already long superseded in Florentine art.

His story represents a part of Florentine art outside Vasari's canon, that became art history's.

What resulted, however, was no pale reflection of Florentine art.

Dei's most significant work was his chronicle of Florentine art, culture, and money, The Chronicle of the Years 1400 to 1500.

But it also results from a kind of close observation of real bodies in motion that set a new standard in Florentine art.

The work is a Maestà, a Madonna enthroned, a theme particularly fashionable in Florentine art at the time.

"An invisible cleaning," Antonio Paolucci, the superintendent of Florentine art, said reassuringly, "like washing the face of a child."

Waldman's research on Florentine art is characterized by an emphasis on reconstructing social networks, families, artists' shops, and the workings of patronage.