The decorative arts of the Middle Ages — richly ornate, filled with religious and mythic symbolism — were especially remarkable for the complexities of their design and their inspired craftsmanship. This fascinating volume presents nearly 1,000 illustrations of medieval ornament, consisting mostly of architectural elements from German Romanesque and Gothic churches and other buildings. Originally compiled by the German architect, painter, and engraver Karl Alexander von Heldeloff (1788–1865) as a source of study and inspiration for practicing artists and architects, this grand pictorial archive has been exactingly reproduced from a rare original edition, complete with new English translations of the German captions. The book is filled with precisely detailed engravings of doors, windows, decorative stonework, columns, pedestals, and more. It remains a richly varied resource of authentic images of medieval ornament, ideal for students of architecture and the decorative arts and essential for graphic artists and designers in search of royalty-free illustrations.

Selected from 19th-century reprints of medieval manuscripts, 355 full-color illustrations depict a wide range of subjects — from birds, florals, animals, and geometrics to letters of the alphabet embellished with flowers and sinuous vines, mythical beasts, musicians, whimsical figures emerging from flowers, knights in battle, and much more.

This lavish archive of exquisite engravings and designs--originally created in the mid-nineteenth century for the professional artist and architect--contains some 200 splendid illustrations, expertly adapted from decorative as well as utilitarian features of medieval cathedrals, churches, tombs, houses, shops, public buildings, and other structures. Encompassing a wide variety of styles, the designs include finely detailed panels, gawking gargoyles, marvelously carved pillars and pedestals, exquisite ironwork patterns, decorative stonework, magnificent stained glass windows, moldings enhanced with intricately woven motifs, and much more. Artists, designers, and craftworkers will find wide use for these versatile, royalty-free illustrations. Students of architecture, art historians, and lovers of ornamental art will delight in the pure beauty of this magnificent collection.

This classic bestseller — the inspiration for the PBS series — is an "illuminating and even inspiring" portrait of medieval Spain that explores the golden age when Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance (Los Angeles Times). This enthralling history, widely hailed as a revelation of a "lost" golden age, brings to vivid life the rich and thriving culture of medieval Spain, where for more than seven centuries Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, and where literature, science, and the arts flourished. "It is no exaggeration to say that what we presumptuously call 'Western' culture is owed in large measure to the Andalusian enlightenment...This book partly restores a world we have lost." —Christopher Hitchens, The Nation

Full of shining artistic gems from a dark period of early medieval history

Scholarship often treats the post-Roman art produced in central and north-western Europe as representative of the pagan identities of the new 'Germanic' rulers of the early medieval world. In this book, Matthias Friedrich offers a critical reevaluation of the ethnic and religious categories of art that still inform our understanding of early medieval art and archaeology. He scrutinises early medieval visual culture by combining archaeological approaches with art historical methods based on contemporary theory. Friedrich examines the transformation of Roman imperial images, together with the contemporary, highly ornamented material culture that is epitomized by 'animal art.' Through a rigorous analysis of a range of objects, he demonstrates how these pathways produced an aesthetic that promoted variety (varietas), a cross-cultural concept that bridged the various ethnic and religious identities of post-Roman Europe and the Mediterranean worlds.