The book traces major concepts including: the creation of the visual effects of accuracy through careful action and training; the development of visual judgment and connoisseurship; the role of a network in the production of knowledge; balancing readers' expectations with representational conventions; and the effects of acts of collecting on the creation and circulation of knowledge. On the one hand, this study uncovers that approaches to knowledge production were different in the seventeenth century, as compared with in the twenty-first century. On the other, it reveals how the early modern struggle to sort through an overwhelming quantity of visual information - brought on by major changes in image production and circulation - resonates with our own.