One Life for Two

“What do you do when your husband gets the best job in the country in a field that he stole from you? Well, that’s what happened to me, and that’s what this book is about.” So begins Marilyn Aronberg Lavin’s spirited memoir of her seventy-year relationship with Irving Lavin, one of America's most eminent art historians. Her narrative traces their parallel careers as they both achieve remarkable success—he as a distinguished professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; she as an award-winning authority on Italian Renaissance painting, iconography, and collectionism. Reflecting on their shared passion for the history of art, Marilyn has crafted a portrait of a partnership, while showing readers how the world of art history can be both intellectually rigorous and emotionally rewarding.

• intellectual history
• memoirs
• renaissance art and architecture