Early Italian Paintings contains the papers presented during a symposium at Yale in April 2002, attended by specialists from museums, colleges, universities, and private conservation firms in a number of different states and countries. The papers cover panel paintings of the 1200s through the 1500s in various institutions. Among the questions addressed are what to do with additions to paintings by later artists and whether lost or damaged areas should be restored-and, if so, to what extent. There are some case histories of recent attempts at restoration. A good deal of space is devoted to the heavy-handed cleaning (dubbed a "tragedy") of a collection at Yale several decades ago. Yale's was the first museum in this country to own a major collection of early Italian paintings, and over the years it has been subjected to dubious conservation practices. Personal Viewpoints contains the proceedings of a seminar held at the Getty Conservation Institute in June 2001 and covers paintings from the 1300s to the 1970s (e.g., Mark Rothko). The participants (conservators, curators, and a chemist) discuss changes in the philosophy, techniques, and materials of conservation. They agree that the change over the last few decades is immense and that the notion of "minimal intervention" is now firmly established: "to do nothing at all might be the best treatment for a painting." Their disagreements on such matters as whether to remove later additions to a painting are especially interesting, as are the six conservators' discussions of paintings they worked on years ago, as they tell what they might do differently today. Though perhaps not appropriate for general libraries, both books provide informative reading for those interested in art conservation and are suitable for special collections.-Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.