This important and beautiful book accompanies the re-opening of the V&A's spectacular Medieval and Renaissance galleries. Presented thematically, it explores the social contexts responsible for some of the museum's most captivating objects, both commonplace and precious, to recover the attitudes of makers and owners towards artistic practice. Rather than adopting the traditional sharp distinction between the Medieval and Renaissance, the authors explore aspects of the whole of this long period in European design and manufacture - an approach that emphasises the continuities and slow developments that were often as significant as sudden upheaval. A general historical introduction to the social and political background is followed by chapters that explore conceptions of art, workshops and sales, the classical past, ornament, religious art, health and body, and the ways in which objects themselves express the attitudes of their owners.