Joseph Burke Lecture, 2011 Images of Friendship from Renaissance Florence from Dante to Michelangelo Professor Dale Kent The question of whether true friendship could exist in an era when patronage shaped most social relations occupied Renaissance Florentines as it had the ancient Greeks and Romans whose culture they admired and emulated. Rather than attempting to measure Renaissance friendship against a universal ideal defined by essentially modern notions of disinterestedness, intimacy and sincerity, I will explore the meaning of love and friendship as they were represented in Renaissance images, drawn from…