ABOUT THE BOOK

'Astonishing in its scope, clarity and insight, Tadgell's survey of the built environment from the beginnings to the twilight of Byzantium, works at every level: it will guide the student and stimulate the scholar.' - David Starkey

'This book is an absolute tour de force. … We have plans, elevations, isometric drawings, and literally thousands of the author's superb photographs. I can't wait for the other four volumes, but this alone will keep me happy for the rest of my life.' - John Julius Norwich

Lavishly illustrated with over 1,000 colour photographs and 400 drawings, this impressive volume brings to life architectural history in vivid form. Having taught extensively in the field for almost thirty years, author Christopher Tadgell traces the subject from its very beginnings until the time when the traditions that shape today’s environments began to flourish.

The first in a series of four books that describe and illustrate the seminal architectural traditions of the world, Tadgell explores key points of interest, including:

• man’s earliest settlements in caves and tents
• the origins of the Classical tradition in the mountain temples of Sumer
• the pyramids of Egypt
• the ziggurats of Mesopotamia.

Progressing through the temples, theatres, palaces and council chambers of ancient Greece and Rome, this book is more than simply a catalogue of buildings; it presents their political, technological, social and cultural contexts, and views architecture not only as the development of form and space, but as an expression of the civilization within which it evolves. Painting a colourful picture of architectural history, the buildings are analyzed and illustrated with photographs and drawings, whilst the societies that produced them are highlighted through a broad selection of artefacts.

Antiquity: Origins, Classicism and the New Rome functions equally as a detailed and comprehensive narrative, a collection of the world’s great buildings and as an archive of themes across time and place.

Contents

Part I: West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean

1. Prologue: Origins
2. From Settlement to City State in Sumer
3. The Old Kingdom of the Nile
4. Mesopotamian Empires
5. The Theban Kingdoms of the Nile
6. The Aegean, Anatolia and Aryans
7. World Empire

Part II: Pre-Columbian America

1. Pre-Classic Mesoamerica
2. The Classic Era

Part III: Hellenic Order

1. Hellas and Hellenic Society
2. The Ordering of Architecture
3. The Temple: From the Archaic to the Classical
4. The Athenian Acropolis
5. Town and House

Part IV: Hellenes Divided; Macedonians Ascendant

1. War and Philosophy
2. Art and the Irrational
3. The Apotheosis of the Macedonians
4. Ionic Apotheosis
5. Late-Classic Town Planning and Civic Building

Part V: Etruscans and Hellenistic Romans

1. The Rise of Rome
2. Etruscan Legacy
3. The Hellenisation of Rome

Part VI: Imperial Rome

1. Monarchy
2. Augustan Rome
3. Imperial Style
4. Imperial Space

Part VII: Christianity and Empire

1. State and Church

Part VIII: Rome and New Rome

1. Introduction
2. Constantinian Building Types
3. The Post-Constantinian Basilica: Standardisation and Variation
4. Post-Constantinian Centralised Planning
5. Justinian And Byzantine Apotheosis
6. Consolidation and Standardisation in the East

Part IX: The West: Imperial Revival and the Latin Cross

1. Introduction
2. The Merovingian and Carolingian Franks
3. Divided Empire
4. The Holy Roman Empire

Part X: The East: Imperial Survival and the Greek Cross

1. Introduction
2. The Church of the Macedonians and Comnenes
3. The Evocation of the Empyrean and Venice
4. Paleologues
5. Towards the Third Rome