tantalising books

It’s not the least of the Late Antique & Byzantine attractions – the mosaics, these delicate fragments delivering such powerful visual & tactile illusions.

So praise be to the producer of Averil Cameron’s book “Byzantine matters” - with its rough cloth cover inviting to be touched, with its  pictured mosaic bird offering such a boisterous sight for sore eyes.

However lost the classical tradition may be - the longing for a lost classical past has a long life.

So praise be to the producer of G. W. Bowersock’s book “From Gibbon to Auden – Essays on the Classical Tradition” .  The cover image of Hubert Robert’s "Roman Ruins" is unmatched in its wistful depiction of tiny people amidst decayed grandeur. ( Hubert Robert!  even when imprisoned during the French revolution, faithfully imagining & painting the grandest of ruins.)

Note for b.

You sharp eye may have noticed it, just below the above mentioned books , tantalisingly close to the touch & the camera:  the surviving gods on the cover of Peter Brown’s “Late Antiquity“