Fonthill, in Wiltshire, is traditionally associated with the writer and collector William Beckford who built his Gothic fantasy house called Fonthill Abbey at the end of the eighteenth century. The collapse of the Abbey’s tower in 1825 transformed the name Fonthill into a symbol for overarching ambition and folly, a sublime ruin. Fonthill is, however, much more than the story of one man’s excesses. Beckford’s Abbey is only one of several important houses to be built on the estate since the early sixteenth century, all of them eventually consumed by fire or deliberately demolished, and all of them oddly forgotten by historians. Little now remains: a tower, a stable block, a kitchen range, some dressed stone, an indentation in a field. Fonthill Recovered draws on histories of art and architecture, politics and economics to explore the rich cultural history of this famous Wiltshire estate. The first half of the book traces the occupation of Fonthill from the Bronze Age to the twenty-first century. Some of the owners surpassed Beckford in terms of their wealth, their collections, their political power and even, in one case, their sexual misdemeanours. They include Charles I’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the richest commoner in the nineteenth century. The second half of the book consists of essays on specific topics, filling out such crucial areas as the complex history of the designed landscape, the sources of the Beckfords’ wealth and their collections, and one essay that features the most recent appearance of the Abbey in a video game.

The word renaissance means "rebirth," and the most obvious example of this phenomenon was the regeneration of Europe's classical Roman roots. The Renaissance began in northern Italy in the late 14th century and culminated in England in the early 17th century. Emphasis on the dignity of man (though not of woman) and on human potential distinguished the Renaissance from the previous Middle Ages. In poetry and literature, individual thought and action were prevalent, while depictions of the human form became a touchstone of Renaissance art. In science and medicine the macrocosm and microcosm of the human condition inspired remarkable strides in research and discovery, and the Earth itself was explored, situating Europeans within a wider realm of possibilities. Organized thematically, the Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe covers all aspects of life in Renaissance Europe: History; religion; art and visual culture; architecture; literature and language; music; warfare; commerce; exploration and travel; science and medicine; education; daily life.

The Metropolitan Museum Journal, issued annually by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, publishes original research on works in the Museum’s collections and the areas of investigation they represent. Volume 48 includes essays on From Tarporley to Dolon: The Reattribution of the Early South Italian “New York Goose Vase,” The Coat of Arms in Fra Filippo Lippi’s Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, Drawings of the Pantheon in the Metropolitan Museum’s Goldschmidt Scrapbook, Sin and Redemption in the Hours of François I (1539-40) by the Master of François de Rohan, Houdon’s Bather in a Drawing by Pierre Antoine Mongin, Corrado Giaquinto’s Medea Rejuvenating Aeson and other Modelli for the Palacio Real of Madrid, and Chinnery and Houqua: Questions of Attribution.

This text provides a comprehensive survey of one of the richest and oldest literatures in the world. Presented as a narrative, and usable as a work of reference, this text offers an account of literature from the beginnings of English until the year 2000.

Jewellery is often viewed as a feminine preoccupation, but in Tudor and Jacobean England men wore just as much jewellery as women. Bejewelled offers an in-depth discussion of the contexts in which jewellery was circulated from a male perspective, considering the jewels as valid items of material culture.

Chrysanthemum loves her name, until she starts going to school and the other children make fun of it.