"In The Mirror of the Gods, Malcolm Bull tells the story of how the great artists of Western Europe - from Botticelli and Leonardo to Titian and Rubens - revived the gods of ancient Greece and Rome. Each chapter focuses on a different deity and sheds light on such familiar figures as Venus, Hercules, and Bacchus. Bull draws on hundreds of illustrations to illuminate the ancient myths as Renaissance and Baroque artists reinterpreted them. When the wealthy and powerful princes of Christian Europe began to identify with the pagan gods, myth became the artist's medium for telling the story of his own time. The Mirror of the Gods is the story of how Renaissance artists combined mythological imagery and artistic virtuosity to change the course of Western art."--Jacket.