An idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, accompanied by the author's own witty illustrations.
In Some Reasons for Traveling to Italy, architect Peter Wilson offers a Grand Tour of Grand Tours, providing an idiosyncratic guidebook to architectural (and other) wonders of Italy, illustrated by his own witty watercolors and sketches. Wilson chronicles the reasons that people throughout history have traveled to Italy--ranging from "To Be the Subject of an Equestrian Painting by Uccello in Florence Cathedral" to "To Rebuild Herculaneum in Malibu" (the desire of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the 1970s)--while giving readers a deeper understanding of Italy's architectural habitat and cultural mythology.
In Wilson's narratives and anecdotes, place names function as talismans; the events may not tally with recorded history, or with the exact topographies of actual places. Wilson offers historical reworkings, appropriations, and an architect's scrutiny of certain Italian tropes. He recounts that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, set out "To Flee England Out of Embarrassment" after breaking wind when he bowed to Queen Elizabeth I; French novelist Stendhal went "To Discover an Anti-France"; and an English architect went "To Get Some Ideas for a Mausoleum." At the first Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1980, a dapper architect found that he had come to Italy "To Fall Overboard in a White Suit," the artist Cy Twombly went simply "To See," and Wilson himself found that he was "Captured by the Ospedale Degli Innocenti," enchanted by the sight of Brunelleschi's architrave.
A la suite des romans de sa trilogie de Lewis, qui a conquis les lecteurs de polars du monde entier, Peter May nous invite à parcourir avec lui les îles de Lewis, ce petit royaume écossais des landes sauvages et des côtes tempétueuses, sur de très belles photographies de David Wilson. Les paysages qui ont inspiré Peter May feront vibrer ses lecteurs !
Au XVIIe siècle, de nombreux Européens se convertirent à l'islam et rejoignirent les rang de la piraterie. Attirés par le gain ou pratiquant une forme de résistance sociale, c'était surtout un moyen de se démarquer d'une Europe livrée à une chrétienté inquisitoriale et tyrannique qui avait fait de cette religion son ennemi 'naturel'. Naquirent alors ici et là des 'républiques pirates', dont la plus connue est la République de Salé au Maroc qu'étudie ici Peter Lamborn Wilson avec autant d'érudition que de fantaisie. Ces îlots de liberté associés à la piraterie lui serviront d'ailleurs de modèle dans la formation du concept de TAZ, dont il est l'auteur sous le pseudonyme de Hakim Bey, et qui flotte sur les nouvelles générations comme le drapeau de Jolly Roger sur les mers du globe.
The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price.
Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.
Francesco Clemente's wide-eyed portraits and bold manipulations of images from art and popular culture have established him as one of today's foremost artists. Clemente continues to draw inspiration from a wide range of cultural sources in this, his most recent series, Nostalgia, Utopia, currently on display at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York.
THE SUNDAY TIMES AND ECONOMIST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016 'A definitive study of the amorphous state that lasted a thousand years ... The Holy Roman Empire deserves to be hailed as a magnum opus' Tom Holland, Daily Telegraph 'Engrossing ... staggering ... a book that is relevant to our own times' The Times 'Masterly ... If, like most people, you know little more about the Holy Roman Empire other than Voltaire's bon mot - "neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire" - then this is the book for you' Daniel Johnson, Sunday Times 'A history that helps us understand Europe's problems today ... interesting and provocative, makes the complex understandable' Christopher Kissane, Guardian A great, sprawling, ancient and unique entity, the Holy Roman Empire, from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later, formed the heart of Europe. It was a great engine for inventions and ideas, it was the origin of many modern European states, from Germany to the Czech Republic, its relations with Italy, France and Poland dictated the course of countless wars - indeed European history as a whole makes no sense without it. In this strikingly ambitious book, Peter H. Wilson explains how the Empire worked. It is not a chronological history, but an attempt to convey to readers why it was so important and how it changed over its existence. The result is a tour de force - a book that raises countless questions about the nature of political and military power, about diplomacy and the nature of European civilization and about the legacy of the Empire, which has continued to haunt its offspring, from Imperial and Nazi Germany to the European Union.
