Introduction: The authority of likeness

Abstract

Waiter Benjamin's essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ has itself developed both an aura of originality and the familiarity brought about by frequent citation.1 By electing to paraphrase Benjamin with the title of this collection, Bart Thurber and I intend to characterize our vision for these texts as one mediated but not overwhelmed by contemporary concerns. Calling the period customarily known as the European Renaissance and Baroque ‘an age of mechanical reproduction’, we wish to highlight the astonishing shifts effected by the broad development of reproducible media between 1450 and 1700.2 Focusing on the medal and the print, we have sought to reframe discussions of these media by assembling essays addressing the novel manner in which they transformed — and to some degree produced — the genre of portraiture.