In this book the author transports readers to the dawn of the Renaissance and chronicles the life of an intrepid book lover who rescued the Roman philosophical text On the Nature of Things from certain oblivion. In this work he has crafted both a work of history and a story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred...

The great turning point of Western civilization that we call the Renaissance - the rebirth of literature, art, architecture, and philosophy in Europe from the fourteenth through the seventeenth century - marked the emergence of the modern world from the dark ages. This ingeniously organized, profusely illustrated book presents the entire epoch of the Renaissance through a spectacular collection of images, offering all the tools anyone needs to explore...

Provides and overview of the artistic diversity of the Italian Renaissance written by renowned authors from the fields of history, architecture and art history.