This suggestive book... looks for its audience to art historians whom F. W. Kent feels might benefit from a historian's discussion of the fragmentary information surrounding Lorenzo's various activities. -- Melissa Meriam Bullard American Historical Review 2005 Kent has brought the breadth and depth of knowledge furnished by his nigh on forty years' research in the archives and libraries of Florence, an extraordinarily sensitive ear for the voices of his fifteenth-century Florentines, a nuanced and subtle understanding of their society and its leading figure, and a Renaissance elegance of structure and writing. -- Ros Pesman Australian Book Review 2006 Extremely valuable... Even though the book tackles a specific theme-Lorenzo the Magnificence's relationship with the visual arts-it also characterizes this key Renaissance figure in the broad political, cultural, and psychological terms available only to a scholar so deeply engaged with every aspect of Lorenzo's life. -- Lorenzo Fabbri Renaissance Quarterly 2006 Elegantly compresses long study, and will stand as a companion to the same author's forthcoming two-volume biography of Lorenzo. -- Patricia Rubin Burlington Magazine 2006 A book with much to offer all readers. -- Susannah Baxendale Journal of Modern History 2008 [Kent is] to be commended highly for penetration as well as precision in [his] scholarship. Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 2008 A remarkable biography of a remarkable man. -- Wayne Andersen Common Knowledge 2009