This is a record of five of Professor Zeri's informal "conversazioni" about art - congenial and witty explorations of great and less well-known works of art and the ideas about culture and society which can be gleaned from close scrutiny of these masterpieces. Ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary painting, Professor Zeri exposes fakes and unravels the complex strands of symbolism woven into secondary details in paintings. All the works discussed are reproduced in colour in the book and many of them are drawn from the National Gallery collection in London.