The most comprehensive anthology of writings by visitors to the eternal city ever compiled – witty, profound and endlessly entertaining.
Drawing on French, Italian, Spanish, English, German, Scandinavian and American sources, Ronald Ridley has compiled a vivid collage-portrait of Rome through the centuries, illustrated with nearly three hundred images.
This hardback edition brings together its three volumes in one: The Middles Ages to the Seventeenth Century, The Eighteenth Century and The Nineteenth Century.
How did visitors arrive? Where did they stay? What were their expenses? What did they see of churches, palaces, villas and antiquities? What did they like or dislike of what they saw? What did they think of Rome in all its contemporary facets? What events did they witness? What portraits do they provide of people in Rome at the time of their visit? Excerpts from memoirs by more than two hundred visitors give a myriad of fascinating insights and together provide a detailed account of Rome over nearly a millennium.
“It amazes me that after all these years and countless books, the scope of subject matter on The Beatles is so amazingly large that writers always find a new angle. This book does that in a very unique and clever way. It’s a must for every Beatles fan.” – Billy J. Kramer
“…It’s a magical mystery tour through the band’s life and times.” —Yahoo Entertainment The It-List
“Part biography and part map to the stars, The Beatles: Fab Four Cities is your “Ticket to Ride” and walk in the footsteps of John, Paul, George and Ringo. It’s the next best thing to actually driving their car…”—Nina Violi, Capitol File. and Gotham magazine
“While the book can be used as a handy tour guide filled with addresses, maps and photos, it also makes for great reading.” —Steve Matteo, The Vinyl District
“But now comes a “magic carpet volume” for Beatles fans that blends travel guide with historical reference in an expanded study of The Beatles’ homes, schools, pubs, venues, and important historic sites…” —Jude Southerland Kessler, Culture Sonar
John Lennon said: “We were born in Liverpool, but we grew up in Hamburg.”
To paraphrase Lennon, we could say that: “The Beatles were born in Liverpool, grew up in Hamburg, reached maturity in London, and immortality in New York.”
Four cities. Four stars. The Fab Four – the Beatles – are revered the world over, but it is in these urban centres that their legacy shines brightest. Liverpool: where the band graduated from church halls, leaving their initial line-up as ‘The Quarrymen’ far behind. Hamburg: where their raucous stage act was honed; where arrests earned them a more notorious celebrity reputation, but they became a true emblem of rock ‘n’ roll. London: where The Beatles produced Sgt Pepper, and home to the iconic album cover for Abbey Road. And New York: the city that became John Lennon’s home, where their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show announced them to 73 million Americans.
The Beatles: Fab Four Cities invites the reader on a cosmopolitan trek across continents, tracing the Beatles’ rise to fame from one metropolis to the next. Flush with timelines, stories, trivia, the numerous links and connections between the cities and both pop cultural and local history, this is a travel guide like no other.
In this brand new and thoroughly revised edition of the bestselling London city guide author Tom Greig not only shares a lot of new secrets, he also included two outside-the-box city walks: an ideal way to explore a part of the city in a day. Many of the new addresses in this guide are in East-London, an area Tom has explored more intensely since the first publication of The 500 Hidden Secrets of London in 2017.
Of course the best hidden secrets in the rest of the city are still included as well, such as the bakery on Brick Lane that’s open 24-hours and that’s famous for its salt-beef bagels; the only modernist house open to the public; the historic church where you can hear avant-garde electronic music; or the art deco car park that hosts art installations and fashion shows. The book contains 500 places and details that few people know, making it the perfect guide for visitors who want to avoid the usual tourist spots and for residents who are keen to track down the city’s best-kept secrets.
“Erudite, while still being fun to read.” — Professor Tim Neild, physiologist and medical educator
“A triumph of Social History in the Georgian period.” — Dr Nigel Cooke FRCP, physician and ceramic historian
This is the first biography and reference book dedicated to Samuel Percy, a modeler who produced an impressive oeuvre of wax portraits and tableaux in the mid-to-late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Based in part on the author’s own substantial collection of Percy waxes, this book follows Percy from his beginnings in Dublin, at the Dublin Society Drawing Schools, working with the famed statuary John Van Nost; to England, where he journeyed from town to town, putting advertisements in regional newspapers. These revealing advertisements have been gathered here for the first time, in order to track his travels. Whether taking the likeness of Princess Charlotte of Wales, or falling victim to a highway robber in Birmingham, these fragments of Percy’s history paint a fascinating picture of his life as a wandering artisan. As well as a chronological narrative of Percy’s life, this book commits an entire chapter to an area of his work that has never been studied before: his miniature tableaux. These portray various subjects, both religious and secular, from Christ on the Cross to playing children. They are catalogued in an appendix, and almost thirty are illustrated. Based entirely on original research, Mr. Percy: Portrait Modeller in Coloured Wax features over a hundred illustrations, celebrating both Percy’s accomplishments and the works of other modellers for comparison.
Peter Vinding-Diers is a Danish aristocrat turned roving winemaker who, on escaping his studies at the Sorbonne one summer found himself on Burgundy’s Côte de Beaune, suddenly besotted. Peter’s first foray into wine took him to the Cape (via a quick turn parachuting into the war-zone in Vietnam), where he learned vineyard ways and wine science. Next came a dazzling decade in Bordeaux, where his pioneering exploits began to catch the world’s attention. He then ventured to Bulgaria, Brazil, Spain, Chile and Hungary earning himself the title ‘Flying Winemaker’ (he was one of the first!). Along his wine journey, Peter has frequently had to call on his Viking ancestors for help – not least in taming his ‘Montecarrubo’ vineyards on the wilder side of Sicily – but whether by accident or by design (mostly the latter), he has always found himself at the forefront of vinous discovery…
The Lake District delights its visitors with a series of superlatives: England’s largest national park, highest mountain, deepest lakes and now a new World Heritage status. One of Britain’s best-loved and most visited locations unveils its secrets. This unusual guidebook explores 111 of the area’s most interesting places, it leaves the well-trodden paths to find the unknown: marvel at a stained glass window which inspired the American flag, let others flock to Hill Top while you explore Beatrix Potter’s holiday home, walk through ancient forest to talk to fairies and swim with immortal fish. Pause to wonder at a stunning lake where a President proposed, view a constellation of stars like nowhere else, find out why exotic spices are used in local cuisine.
Allah Baksh’s magnificent miniature paintings of Vyasa’s great epic, The Mahabharata, were commissioned by Udaipur’s Maharana Jai Singh, and painted between 1680 and 1698. The selection of nearly 2000 paintings, published in four volumes, are from a folio of more than 4000 extant works illuminating the Mahabharata. The fifth volume of 500 paintings devoted to the Gita, has already been published.
These radiant miniatures, which follow almost every story in every chapter of the Mahabharata, have no precedent in India’s art tradition. The emphasis in these paintings is not on heroic posturing and spiritual pride, but on the pain that the earth and its creatures endure when human beings tragically fail to fulfill their dharma. The images in the paintings are symbolically charged, their colors are clear and luminous, their lines are restrained and precise. Allah Baksh’s art of visionary thoughtfulness deserves an honored place in the great library of Indian scriptures and their visual interpretations.
Introductions to the parvas illuminated in these four volumes offer reflections on the moral resonance of the stories, as they reveal the fate of a civilization from its divine beginning to its fateful destruction. The Hindi translation of the Mewari text in the colophons, describing the story being illustrated, furthers our understanding of the history of cultural exchange between the different religions, regions and languages of India. Comments on the paintings in English enable the reader to decode the images and follow the narrative grandeur of this great Indian epic.
This Boston guide is the newest addition to the internationally successful series The 500 Hidden Secrets. Like the other city guides in the series, it contains 500 places to visit or things to know. All of them are addresses or activities the author, savvy Boston local Natalia Ivanytsky, would recommend to friends visiting her hometown. A new feature are the two city walks included in the book, leading past a selection of the 500 secrets: a great way for first-time visitors to get to know the city.
This bulky selection of Boston tips is based only on the author’s personal opinions after thorough research: Natalia wandered through the many Boston streets and neighborhoods accompanied by her dog, looking for the best places to eat, drink, shop, visit, dive into the cultural scene, … She drank and ate her way through the best brunch spots, cocktail bars, and restaurants with family and friends, looking for the five best on-the-go sandwiches, the five tastiest street food trucks, the nicest shops for New England-inspired home décor or five urban oasis garden escapes. She also tells you which unofficial stops along the Freedom Trail are worthwhile, or where to find cool outdoor art installations. Her aim is to showcase Boston’s strong culture beyond sports and history, and to help you discover new, unexplored places.
The Royal Touch is a beautiful compilation of stunning recipes gathered from far and wide on an incredible culinary journey. It is one that has covered three continents over several decades and has taken in many a royal palace along the way. Carolyn Robb, former personal chef to TRH The Prince and Princess of Wales, Prince William and Prince Harry, presents the food that she loves to serve to her family and friends; food that is fit for a king, yet is accessible to us all. Inspired by everything from her mother’s home-cooking, memories of her happy childhood in South Africa and her extensive travels to the extraordinary experiences of 13 years as a chef in the royal household, Carolyn’s recipes are simple to prepare and perfect to share. Whether you are entertaining special guests, going on a picnic, planning a cosy fireside supper, cooking with children or you simply feel like trying your hand at some baking, this book has it all and the ingredients you require won’t break the bank.
The wee folk have returned! Uncover the mystery of who they are and why they are here in the first book of the Vinetrope Adventures. Following a young girl, Sara, who has recently lost her mom to cancer, Return of the Vinetropes tells the story of a remarkable fairy-like creature found in Sara’s back yard. Lucinda Vinetrope: born wise, full-grown, and all alone. She may only be 12 inches high, but her personality is huge! Her arrival signifies the return of the Vinetrope nation, but also the return of their evil counterparts, the Chargons and the Vinkali. Joined by a supporting cast of comedic characters, animal and human alike, Sara and Lucinda set off on their quest to find the other Vinetropes and protect their world from danger.
Women Garden Designers presents twenty-seven of the most important and influential women garden designers and their gardens from around the world, showing both their finest commissions as well as the gardens they designed for themselves, in their own space. The carefully researched text examines their influences and their legacy to garden design. Beginning with the remarkable Gertrude Jekyll and Beatrix Farrand, who were working simultaneously, though on different sides of the Atlantic, the book then moves on into the 20th century, featuring international designers as diverse as Florence Yoch – who created gardens for film sets and for glamorous Hollywood homes – and Vita Sackville-West – whose regular gardening column in the Observer, along with her own garden at Sissinghurst, influenced those in Britain. In Australia, Edna Walling supplemented her income from her practice with regular articles in life-style magazines. Increasingly with picture-led articles, designers found a way to publicize and advertise their work, thus gaining new clients in emancipated women who were in a position to place their own commissions. Women designers were more likely and quicker to embrace the ecological garden movement particularly in Germany and Sweden in the middle of the 20th century. They are represented by Herta Hammerbacher and Rosemary Weisse, who created the glorious perennial plantings in Munich’s West Park and Ulla Bodorff in Sweden, as well as Isabelle Greene in California with her dry native plantings. The modern movement includes Monica Gora and Topher Delaney, for whom spirituality and landscape as works of art are important. The more conventional structured approach is represented by Penelope Hobhouse and Rosemary Verey, who began creating gardens later in their lives, following motherhood. Haruko Seki from Japan and Isabel du Prat from Brazil express their own special cultural qualities in their trans-global practices. Contents: Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932, English); Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959, American); Norah Lindsay (1876-1948, English); Marian Coffin (1876-1957, American); Florence Yoch (1890-1972, American); Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962, English); Edna Walling (1895-1973, Australian); Brenda Colvin (1897-1981, English); Herta Hammerbacher (1900-1985, German); Sylvia Crowe (1907-1997, English); Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard (1903-1974, Italian); Joane Pim (1904-2002, South African); Ulla Bodorf (1913-1982, Swedish); Rosemary Verey (1918-2001, English); Cornelia Oberlander (1921-, Canadian); Rosmarie Weisse (1927-2002, German); Penelope Hobhouse (1929- English); Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002, French); Isabelle Greene (1934- American); Arabella Lennox-Boyd (1938- Italian); Nancy Goslee Power (1942- American); Topher Delaney (1948- American); Isabel du Prat (1954- Brazilian); Petra Blaisse (1955- Dutch); Monica Gora (1959- Swedish); Haruko Seki (1959- Japanese).
This bulletin is the first of a new annual series which Archetype Books is publishing in association with the British Museum. It offers a new forum to show a dynamic, behind-the-scenes glimpse of current work of curators, conservators and scientists, conducted on a range of artefacts and materials across the collections at the British Museum. This volume includes papers on: the conservation and analysis of the John White watercolors, the effects of ultraviolet-filtered light on fabrics, shell garniture from Gujarat, the black bronzes of Burma, the use of Variscite as a semi-precious stone, the effects of relative humidity on the corrosion of iron, the emperor’s terrapin, Aztec conch shell working, and pigmented inlays from the tomb chapel of an Old Kingdom noble.
From the Coolest Corner – Nordic Jewellery presents groundbreaking and fresh jewelry from Northern Europe, a comprehensive selection of current works by artists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic States. The best and most innovative Scandinavian art jewelry is presented, assessing its possibilities and potential at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The project presented in this publication, culminating in a symposium and a traveling exhibition, challenges stereotypical notions of northern European art jewelry. Do the typical Nordic trends of the nineteen-nineties still apply today? Indeed are there currently any general trends at all in Scandinavian design? Or has the orientation towards international design become so dominant that there are no longer any regional characteristics? Renowned experts have made a selection of representative works, as a basis for researching the role of northern European jewelry in the context of international art.
Text in English, Norwegian & Swedish.
The Miller Ceramic Art Collection features masterpieces highlighting the artistic ideals of numerous luminaries of mid-twentieth century to early twenty-first century American ceramic art. In addition, the collection includes important examples of European and Japanese ceramic artworks of the same period. Marlin Miller’s profound understanding of materials began with ceramic engineering. His interest in brick and its role in architecture informs a keen eye for surface texture, dimension and materiality.
The publication is a comprehensive presentation of one of the world’s most distinguished private collections of contemporary studio ceramics, and an observation on the correlation between ceramics and architecture. With contributions by Meghen Jones, Sequoia Miller, Michael McKinnell and Wayne Higby.
“An excellent resource for educating and inspiring young minds on the subjects of architecture, engineering, and the built environment” – Architect’s Toy Box
Aimed at young, enquiring minds, An Igloo on the Moon explores how and why we build. Beginning with the igloo, whose origins are lost in time, and culminating in the latest 3D-printing technology for lunar habitation, the book weaves together themes and ideas to create an unfolding visual story. Illustrated with a sequence of extraordinary collages, specially created by artist Adrian Buckley, the book ranges through history and across continents. Underlying the narrative is an awareness of environmental issues and the need to reconnect with sustainable patterns of building. It is a book to engage the next generation of architects – and their parents and teachers. The title has won the DAM Architectural Book Award 2015 and was exhibited in Frankfurt.
“Thank you for your beautiful book it reminds us what architecture is about!” Renzo Piano
“Neural networks do not understand what optical illusions are.” – Technologyreview.com
“Some pictures tell a thousand lies.” – hplyrikz.com
An optical illusion confuses the eye by pretending to be something it isn’t. It both misleads and deceives the brain, which is trying to make sense of the information the eye is sending. This book presents a selection of brain-bending optical illusions featuring graphic art and photography by 60 artists, and includes an overview of the history of optical illusions in art.
The digital revolution has made customers more demanding than ever. Speed, transparency and hyper-personalization are the new norm. More and more brand manufacturers are now selling in their own stores and webshops are selling directly to consumers in increasing quantities. In the meantime, new technologies are heralding the next phase of seismic change. In this book, Gino Van Ossel introduces the concept of optichannel, which will guide retailers, brand manufacturers and service companies through and beyond the current wave of digital hysteria. Using recognizable examples, he offers a realistic view of the retail landscape of the future and sets out a practical framework for a successful strategy that combines profit, competitiveness and customer focus.