You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Conclusion -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Glossary -- Index
The Henry VII and Elizabeth of York marriage bed, rediscovered in 2010, is an exceptional piece of late medieval English royal furniture: no other equivalent example of secular domestic furniture is known to have survived, and, indeed, precious little woodwork from this period remains outside of ecclesiastical settings. As a tour-de-force of medieval royal woodwork, the bed offers an unprecedented insight into elite domestic furniture from this period. Since its rediscovery, the bed has been subjected to a wide array of investigation by furniture specialists, medieval historians, design historians and scientists. Emerging from a decade-long multidisciplinary research project, this book is th...
Over the course of the long 18th century (1700-1850), Britain's ruined medieval or "Gothic" abbeys, castles and towers became the objects of intense cultural interest. Turning their attention away from Classical to local and national sites of architectural ruin, antiquaries and topographers began to scrutinize and sketch, record and describe the material remains of the British past, an expression of interest in domestic antiquity that was shared by many contemporary painters, poets, writers, politicians and tourists. This new, highly illustrated book traces the ways in which a selection of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish ruins served as the objects of continuous cultural reflection between 1700 and 1850, drawing together essays on the antiquarian, poetic, visual, oral, fictional, dramatic, political, legal and touristic responses that they engendered. Thoroughly interdisciplinary in its approach, Writing Britain's Ruins provides an accessible and engaging account of the ways in which Britain's ruins inspired writers, artists and thinkers during a period of extraordinary cultural richness.
Fonthill, in Wiltshire, is traditionally associated with the writer and collector William Beckford who built his Gothic fantasy house called Fonthill Abbey at the end of the eighteenth century. The collapse of the Abbey’s tower in 1825 transformed the name Fonthill into a symbol for overarching ambition and folly, a sublime ruin. Fonthill is, however, much more than the story of one man’s excesses. Beckford’s Abbey is only one of several important houses to be built on the estate since the early sixteenth century, all of them eventually consumed by fire or deliberately demolished, and all of them oddly forgotten by historians. Little now remains: a tower, a stable block, a kitchen rang...
A consideration of Petrarch's influence on, and appearance in, French texts - and in particular, his appropriation by the Avignonese. Was Petrarch French? This book explores the various answers to that bold question offered by French readers and translators of Petrarch working in a period of less well-known but equally rich Petrarchism: the nineteenth century. It considers both translations and rewritings: the former comprise not only Petrarch's celebrated Italian poetry but also his often neglected Latin works; the latter explore Petrarch's influence on and presence in French novels aswell as poetry of the period, both in and out of the canon. Nineteenth-century French Petrarchism has its r...
An examination of the ways in which the fluid concept of "chivalry" has been used and appropriated after the Middle Ages. One of the most difficult and complex ethical and cultural codes to define, chivalry has proved a flexible, ever-changing phenomenon, constantly adapted in the hands of medieval knights, Renaissance princes, early modern antiquarians, Enlightenment scholars, modern civic authorities, authors, historians and re-enactors. This book explores the rich variations in how the Middle Ages were conceptualised and historicised to illuminate the plurality of uses of the past. Using chivalry as a lens through which to examine concepts and uses of the medieval, it provides a critical ...
The first closely historicized study of the relationship between Gothic architecture and Gothic and Romantic literature.
As this exciting contribution to interdisciplinary studies in the arts shows, the art and architecture of the Middle Ages were reworked, reframed and reinterpreted in diverse ways from as early as the sixteenth century. In addition, the definition of “Gothic” art and architecture was used, questioned, and challenged in a range of literature from the Renaissance onwards. The diverse essays in Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture demonstrate that the Gothic spirit manifested itself in many visual forms, including furniture, set design, cathedrals, book illustration, and urban architecture. Edited by Laura Cleaver and Ayla Lepine, Gothic Legaci...
2024 marks the 250th anniversary of John Wilkes becoming Lord Mayor of London. A man simultaneously full of contradiction and principles, Wilkes was a giant of eighteenth-century England and helped shape modern Britain.
This collection provides an innovative and wide-ranging introduction to the world of Arthur by looking beyond the canonical texts and themes, taking instead a transversal perspective on the Arthurian narrative. Together, its thirty-four chapters explore the continuities that make the material recognizable from one century to another, as well as transformations specific to particular times and places, revealing the astonishing variety of adaptations that have made the Arthurian story popular in large parts of the world. Divided into four parts—The World of Arthur in the British Isles, The European World of Arthur, The Material World of Arthur, and The Transversal World of Arthur — the vol...