This volume is the first English-language study of the baptistery of Padua and its extraordinarily rich fresco program, commissioned by a woman, Fina Buzzacarini, in the 1370s.

The Early Byzantine Great Palace in Constantinople, while profoundly influential upon later Western architecture, remains largely unknown, however in this study, a focus upon the operation of ascription of meaning upon forms, and emulation of them in later architecture will enable a sense of the complex, in its physical and social contexts, to be established.

Very richly illustrated, this volume re-frames this exceptional library within its political, economic, historical and artistic context, examining closely both scholarly literature and more than sixty manuscripts considered to be the jewels of the Library.