Mary Berenson's beautifully written diaries and letters see her leave behind a dissatisfying marriage to live in Italy with Bernard Berenson, the foremost expert of his time in Italian Renaissance Art. She herself becomes an authority on art history, influencing American collectors during the first decade of the twentieth century. From this distance, her diaries and letters have become her portrait of the period through the relationships forged at Villa I Tatti, the family home in Florence; edited by Barbara Strachey and Jayne Samuels
