This book is not a detailed treatise on the Renaissance. Nor do I think it was intended to be. Instead you will find a brief narrative running throughout the book, supplemented with a wealth of pictures, that gives a glimpse of what fuelled the Renaissance and how it affects us today. Scholarly books tend to be mostly text interspersed with a few line drawings or maps. It is easy to get lost in the words and The Panorama of the Renaissance serves as a visual reference or supplement to help get you back on the path. The narrative is somewhat too brief to stand on its on in my opinion but the pictures are often stunning.