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Synopsis
After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today. On visits to the great cities of Europe--monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto--Cahill captures the spirit of experimentation, the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations for the modern world.--From publisher description., Historian Thomas Cahill brings the Middle Ages to life in an accessible synthesis of scholarship on history and art, revealing the period to be a very busy and colorful one, and putting to rest the inaccurate and pejorative term "the Dark Ages." Focusing on the central role of the Church in everyday lives, and the larger meanings that derived from that (including an elevation of the status of women), Cahill offers portraits of great figures in scholarship, mysticism, and science such as Augustine, Abelard, Hildegard of Bingen, and Roger Bacon.
He conveys the exciting pulse of life in key cities such as Rome, Paris, and London, and he underscores the importance of artists and writers like Giotto and Dante. Together, the advances in knowledge represented in religion, science, art and literature added up to civilization--to which Cahill is a lively and reliable popular guide. Illustrated.
| Size | | Length: | 343 pages | | Height: | 9.3 in | | Width: | 6.8 in | | Thickness: | 1.5 in | | Weight: | 26.4 oz |
Industry Reviews
"The book is handsomely produced....The boxes with information on 'alumni of Alexandria' and 'the system of Dante's Hell,' among other topics will help readers keep a wealth of facts in context; so will the generous complement of illustrations, most of them described by the author in enthusiastic detail, both in his captions and in the text itself. Cahill makes seemingly forbidding medieval works of art seem accessible...."
(12/24/2006)
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