In 1527 the Venetian merchant and antiquarian Andrea Odoni (1485–1545) commissioned Lorenzo Lotto to portray him on a sizeable canvas measuring 104.3 x 116.8 cm (Royal Collection, Hampton Court). This remarkable portrait of a Renaissance collector encircled by his sculptural possessions has been investigated numerous times, most recently by Peter Humfrey in his monograph Lorenzo Lotto (1997, 106–07) and in two catalogues for eponymously named exhibitions held in Washington, DC, and Rome (1998, 161–64; 2011, 214–16), but Monika Schmitter's new book amply broadens those studies by examining, in addition to the canvas, Odoni's family, career, home, and belongings. The author tells her story of his political, geographical, and social worlds, his palace, and its interior in seven chapters, finally homing in on Lotto's work and his sitter's likeness. A rich biography emerges of a well-to-do businessman very much aware of his cultural priorities and social ambitions.

Schmitter pinpoints several fortuitous survivals regarding both painter and sitter. The nineteenth century rediscovered Lotto's signature and date on the canvas as it did Marcantonio Michiel's naming the work in a manuscript description of public and private collections. Linked to these finds are Pietro Aretino's mention of the portrait in a 1538 letter to Odoni, a 1555 inventory of his household, Giorgio Vasari's 1568 note on the portrait in his Vite, and, finally, clues regarding Odoni in volume 3 of Emmanuele Antonio Cicogna's inexhaustible Delle inscrizioni veneziane (1830). Building upon these older sources, Schmitter then masters an impressive myriad of more recent studies in order to pry Odoni open, so to speak, so that his direct glance and sweeping gesture as Lotto limned him welcome the historian—for the book is clearly aimed at this audience—into the sitter's home near the church of Santa Croce, now more or less the site of the Giardini Papadopoli.

The author's bona fides as a cultural historian are evident in chapters 1 and 2, “Venice in Transition” and “Second-Generation Venetian.” Too much so? While she must explain Odoni's status in Venice as a member of the cittadini class, is discussion of the Fourth Crusade of 1204 necessary? Of the Serrata of 1297 and the peculiar structure of the Venetian government? This Adam and Eve approach to history, widespread in American art historical studies today, is apparently now essential. Yet the first chapters might have been streamlined, particularly as the third and those following are germane and richly detailed. Schmitter's examination of Odoni's home—its site, plan, facade frescoes, and sculptural ornamentation—takes readers into issues that confronted him and his contemporaries just as they still challenge modern historians investigating public citizenship versus private life in the Renaissance. Chapter 4, “Creating Rome in Venice: Odoni's Antigaia,” offers fascinating reading regarding Andrea's unusual mode of displaying antiquities, its differences from Venetian exhibition practices (as in the famous Grimani collection), and its surprising similarities with the placement of ancient statuary in contemporary Roman homes. Schmitter contends that Odoni's were contemplative or meditative spaces, not showcases, bringing to mind themes prevalent in Rose Macauley's wonderful book, The Pleasure of Ruins (1966). Schmitter also uses her creative and intellectual forces to investigate Odoni's portego and nearby camere on the piano nobile. Objects that likely adorned his palace, or ones similar to those that did, are minutely studied to create a multilayered picture of their owner.

The book's last chapter rightfully questions why Odoni chose Lotto as his painter, not Titian, and then, studying the portrait, Schmitter examines the sitter's beard, clothing, the objects at hand (not always those he owned), the light in the room, and the many meanings the ensemble suggests. This reader would have preferred fewer absolute readings, but the book is nonetheless a fitting testament to both sitter and painter. Three critical comments: lacking a list of illustrations and fuller captions, readers cannot access measurements (not until page 159 for the portrait); the usual subdivisions in the text encourage needless repetition; and as Schmitter doesn't address Lotto's manipulation of oils on the canvas, we lose the wonder of Odoni's beard and fur-trimmed robe. Carlo Ridolfi commented in Le Meraviglie dell'Arte (1648) that Venetians appreciated Lotto's delicatezza; the portrait is a painting, not a print.