This book represents the first work of history dedicated to the crusade of King Conrad III of Germany (1146–48), emperor-elect of the Western Roman Empire and the most powerful man yet to assume the Cross.

This volume focuses on the reception of Gaius Julius Caesar, one of the most well-known and widely discussed personalities of Antiquity.

The fourteenth century in Italy, the age of Giotto, Dante, and Boccaccio, widely known as the trecento, was a pivotal moment in art history and in European culture. The studies in this volume present new approaches to art in this important but often neglected period of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.