Book Reviews 807 This portion of the flnal chapter appeared separately (and productively) in a recent (2012) Ashgate anthology, edited by Sharon Gregory and Sally Anne Hickson: Inganno— The Art of Deception: Imitation, Reception and Deceit in Early Modern Art. It epitomizes the arguments of Bubenik: collecting and appreciation of an artist by later generations matters and engenders a variety of pictorial—and verbal—appropriations. These can range, as noted, from copying to forgery to imitation to emulation, and the process already began during Dürer's lifetime, especially in the noted case of Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings in Venice after Dürer woodcuts (discussed by Lisa Pon in Raphael, Dürer, and Marcantonio Raimondi [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004]). Bubenik generously credits her extensive use of predecessors, such as Koreny and Pon (as well as Gisela Goldberg and Eliska Fuciková—incidentally, the Prague connection was formative for Bubenik, who reads Czech). For the interested reader new to this material, one recent, prior study (also generously acknowledged) deserves mention: Dürer and His Legacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press / London: British Museum Press), Giulia Bartrum's breathtaking catalogue from the British Museum exhibition of 2002. That volume (223-92) features many of the period examples taken up by Bubenik, with others as well, in addition to a coda on the Romantic cult of the artist (293-314), which extends beyond Bubenik's period of the "Dürer Renaissance." Indeed, considering the powerful influence of Dürer, especially through his prints, across the width of Europe—and even to the collections of the Mughal emperors in India—it might be more accurate to speak of a Dürer survival rather than a revival or "Renaissance" after less than a half-century. Bubenik makes clear that collection inventories chiefly organized their prints and other artworks by themes—except for Dürer, the lone exception. But in fact the avidity of Rudolf II also extended to works of Lucas van Leyden in the Netherlands, and Italian collectors prized scraps from Michelangelo (il divino) with just as much cultic reverence in his own time and afterwards. So what this analysis really underscores—along with the variety of responses by subsequent artists to Dürer's own oeuvre—is the importance ofthat passion for collecting of selected famous masters that arose in the later sixteenth century, fueled by competition among grasping rulers and their followers. Andrea Bubenik has correctly identified this crucial period of collection-building, and her focus on Dürer among northern artists is well taken. It remains for other scholars of the history of collections and of "the appropriation of art" to follow her lead. Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child: Funeral Monuments and Their European Context. Jeannie Labno. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011. xiv -i- 457 pp. $134.95. ISBN 978-0-7546-6825-1. REVIEWED BY: Michael T. Tworek Harvard University Children, barring a few exceptions, played a relatively minor role in funeral monuments in early modern Europe. Deceased children were generally included as an airxüiary part of a larger design dedicated to their parents. Representations of children were often indistinguishable from each other. Moreover, if families did decide to memorialize a child, they tended to honor boys far more frequently than girls. Yet, in contrast to most regions of Europe, sixteenth-century Poland witnessed the development of a highly distinct genre of monuments that celebrated the individuality of the child. These tombs were quite numerous 808 Sixteenth Century Journal XUV/3 (2013) and elaborate. They drew on and adapted various artistic influences, especially classical ones. Additionally, these monuments were often dedicated explicitly to children, commemorating daughters and sons and holding them in equal prominence with adults. Yet, why were deceased children put on such a high artistic pedestal in Poland? Why did Polish society encourage parental affection and close attachment to children? These are the overarching questions that Jeannie Labno addresses in her well-researched monograph. Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child. She considers "why and how children's monuments were made, hy whom and for whom they were commissioned, and why they were created in their particular form" (8). Still, the material and artistic aspects of these monuments are not her sole concerns. Lahno argues that these funeral monuments transcend their immediate functional and artistic purposes and boundaries. Above all, they reveal much about the political, social, and cultural landscapes of Renaissance Poland. Labno draws expertly on the works of Erwin Panofsky, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, and Norman Davies, inter alios, to offer a compelling picture of Poland that emphasizes its uniqueness socially, its deep connections with the artistic, cultural, and intellectual currents permeating through Europe, and its participation in the Renaissance. Labno divides her book into five thematic parts. Part 1 provides the historical, religious, and social contexts that contributed to the pecuhar development of Polish parents commemorating their deceased children in elaborate funeral monuments. In particular, the supremacy of the Polish szlachta (nobility) and the weakness of royal power "resulted in a different process of civilisation in Poland" (57). This exceptionalism arose largely from Sarmatianism, a movement that emphasized the Polish nobility's distinct and separate social origin from the other estates of Poland and influenced their political, cultural, and religious values well heyond the early modern period. Sarmatianism elevated women and, in particular, children, since they were the products of their noble ancestry and the virtues resulting from it. Equally, Labno stresses the importance of the religious tolerance and multiconfessionalism in fostering and increasing the cultural contacts of Poland with the rest of Europe. Part 2 attempts to "locate" the "forgotten Renaissance" of Poland by examining the wider European context and establishing the conditions that enabled the diffusion of Italian Renaissance art to Poland. Labno details how dynastic ties and academic exchanges produced a rich Renaissance culture in Poland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These factors contributed to a concerted interest among wealthy Polish nohles in Renaissance sculpture. These elites not only hired Itahan artists to produce funerary sculptures, but also directed the artistic style of these monuments to children to their tastes and their peers' expectations. Nowhere is this artistic power dynamic clearer, according to Labno, than in the "reclining putto" motif found widely in Polish funerary monuments yet absent in Jtalian ones during this time period. Part 3 addresses why the commemoration of children became an important part of Polish society. Labno emphasizes that "the particular ethos and position of the szlachta gave rise to a very particular family model, which enhanced the status of women and valued children" (151). Again, Sarmatianism played an important role in shaping how Polish nobles grieved over their children. Parts 4 and 5 examine the general characteristics of Polish child funeral monuments from 1500 to 1650. Labno found striking changes in the iconography of the Polish puf Í0 motif The most significant evolution in this motif was from a reclining puf io asleep to a kneeling one in these monuments from 1580 onwards, which Labno attributes quite rightly to the rise of the Catholic Reformation in Poland. Finally, Labno concludes with a detailed catalogue that provides extremely valuable information on the artistic, material, geographic, and familial backgrounds of forty-four Polish funeral monuments. Book Reviews 809 Labno's book is important to the study of the early modern period in two ways. First, it highlights the profound diffusion and adaptation of the Renaissance in central and eastern Europe. She illustrates the vast extent of cultural exchanges in Polish art and patronage, bringing in influences from England and Holland to Italy. Labno's catalogue of Polish funeral monuments provides an invaluable resource either for further research or as a supplement for wider studies of the region. Secondly, Labno's work is an important contribution to our understanding of childhood in the early modern period. She offers a portrait of familial relations that contrasts with Phflippe Aries's work on premodern Europe. While Labno's criticisms of Aries are not new, she provides ample documentary evidence that Polish parents were far from indifferent when it came to their progeny, especially in honoring their memory in death. However, Labno's book is marred at times by stylistic and editorial problems. The most glaring and unfortunate one is the cutoff final paragraph in the conclusion of her book (251). Nevertheless, Commemorating the Polish Renaissance Child remains an extremely valuable scholarly contribution for historians and art historians of the early modern period. Henry VIII and History. Ed. Thomas Betteridge and Thomas S. Ereeman. Earnham: Ashgate, 2012. xii + 279 pp. $124.95. ISBN 978-1-4094-0015-8. REVIEWED BY: Emma J. Wells Durham University, UK Henry VIII is arguably one of the greatest Britons in history: a force of nature yet no less an object of sheer fascination. His reign was peppered with scandal, lasciviousness, political/economic upheaval, and bloodshed—the workings of a modern Hollywood movie. Still, the man himself continues to remain a paradox. It is no surprise, therefore, that his image has captured historians and writers alike, and across generations their interpretations and reinterpretations of this fascinating subject have created somewhat of a caricature of the real ruler and man. Henry VIII and History seeks to uncover the truth regarding the various myths, propagandas, and stereotypes ascribed to the monarch over the centuries by a range of authors from Shakespeare to Scarisbrick. The premise rests on the idea that such novelists, dramatists, and historians have created a perception just as capricious as his character and thus aims to uncover just why the Tudor monarch's reputation has become such a fantastical creation. As William Thomas wrote in Peregryne, "he who woU learne the trouthe of matters must covet to knowe as well the contra as the pro, or ever he can judge well" (50). Comprised of fourteen essays and divided into three chronological eras, the edited volume examines how Henry's historiographie legacy has been grappled with throughout factual and fictional literature (excluding visual depictions) following his death in 1547 to the English Civil War, the Restoration to Edwardian era, and finally the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Although the immediate academic suggestion would be to place the scholars of the mid-twentieth century as the unequivocal ringleaders in shaping the king's reputation, this volume suggests this is not in fact the case. The tripartite order allows the reader to identify the very noticeable series of shifts in how Henry was perceived. Erom William Thomas's laudatory account of Henry as an English David, this perception evolves into John Foxe's rather unbalanced view of the monarch—more an impressionable youth manipulated by advisors than a heroic force to be reckoned with (chapters 1-5). However, Edward Hall's revolutionary Chronicle proposed that there was a definitive changing point in Henry's character—a view also taken up by the Copyright of Sixteenth Century Journal is the property of Sixteenth Century Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.