“All that can be said of it is that it somehow reaches the heart, while escaping the mind.” This is but one of many attempts at defining that elusive concept of “grace” in Ita Mac Carthy’s particularly well-written study. Artists, widows, courtesans, humanists and poets with names like Raphael, Tullia d’Aragona, Vittoria Colonna, Benedetto Varchi and Baldassare Castiglione grace the pages of this revealing analysis of the many shapes that this often-overused term took during the Renaissance.