Examines the dark aspects of the Italian Renaissance, focusing on artistic and literary patronage as a strategy of self-promotion and as a means to achieve and preserve power. From the Northern court of Milan to the Southern Kingdom of Naples, we journey through the Italian peninsula, a land that gave birth to illustrious artists and poets in one of the most troubled periods of Italian history, marked by political conflict, bloody rivalries, family betrayals, and wars. What hides beneath the image of some of these benevolent and enlightened patrons of learning, often praised as "ideal rulers" by artists and writers of the Renaissance, are ambitious and crafty politicians, who sought their own interests and goals in their ruthless pursuit of power