This book presents the 16th century cartoons of Gaudenzio Ferrari and his school, a valuable collection that arrived at the Pinacoteca dell'Accademia Albertina in Turin in 1832, as a donation from King Charles Albert of Savoy. It consists of a collection of fifty-nine preparatory drawings, some quite large, which mainly relate to important paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari, Bernadino Lanino, Gerolamo Giovenone and Giuseppe Giovenone the Younger. This is a unique collection of cartoons that has remained preserved for centuries despite its fragility, and that enables us to enter the workshops of the 16th century to find out about art education in the Renaissance, before the arrival of the modern Academies of Fine Arts.

The book includes a historical essay by Giovanni Testori and previously unpublished essays by Andreina Griseri and Simone Baiocco, and offers the reader a feast of beauty, with large photographs of all 59 drawings, printed in high resolution for the first time.