我们通常期待一门艺术史课程会与许多个体打交道:一个或者许多艺术家,我们能够透过他们的作品看出他们的生活和个性。但在涉及古典瓶画和中世纪手抄本时,我们很难以这种方式来研究某组器物和几套作品的作者,这种研究西欧—尤其是意大利艺术—的方法大约在14世纪以后才开始出现,原因在于艺术自身的历史性的趣味(art-historically interesting)。这可以追溯到作家们在纪念本国及本地区的艺术家 We often expect an art history course to deal with many individuals: one or many artists, and we can see their lives and personalities through their work. But when it comes to classical bottle paintings and medieval manuscripts, it is very hard for us to study the authors of a group of objects and sets of works in this way, and this approach to the study of Western Europe, and especially of Italian art, began to appear after about the fourteenth century Because of the art-historically interesting art itself. This can be traced back to the writers who are commemorating artists in their own country and in the region