How the nature illustrations of a Renaissance polymath reflect his turbulent ageThis pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and philosophy in the late sixteenth-century Low Countries. Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked h "Bass provides an ideal, humanist reading of Hoefnagel's oeuvre, positing the painter in opposition to the world of sixteenth-century court culture. . . . Insect Artifice is a magnificently illustrated, erudite, and profoundly insightful book. It offers an original and provocative interpretation of how Hoefnagel relied on art to remedy the wounds that the Dutch Revolt had inflicted upon him."---Dániel Margócsy, CAA Reviews