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Mysteries of the Middle Ages
Thomas Cahill
The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe
Nan A. Talese
November 2006
On Sale: October 24, 2006
368 pages ISBN: 0385495552 EAN: 9780385495554 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark
Ages, Europe experienced a rebirth of scholarship, art,
literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop a
vision of Western society that remains at the heart of
Western civilization today. By placing the image of the Virgin Mary at the center of
their churches and their lives, medieval people exalted
womanhood to a level unknown in any previous society. For
the first time, men began to treat women with dignity and
women took up professions that had always been closed to them. The communion bread, believed to be the body of Jesus,
encouraged the formulation of new questions in philosophy:
Could reality be so fluid that one substance could be
transformed into another? Could ordinary bread become a holy
reality? Could mud become gold, as the alchemists believed?
These new questions pushed the minds of medieval thinkers
toward what would become modern science. Artists began to ask themselves similar questions. How can
we depict human anatomy so that it looks real to the viewer?
How can we depict motion in a composition that never moves?
How can two dimensions appear to be three? Medieval artists
(and writers, too) invented the Western tradition of realism. On visits to the great cities of Europe—monumental Rome; the
intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard and Thomas
Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and
the incomparable Florence of Dante and Giotto—Cahill
brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation, the
colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge
that built the foundations for the modern world. Bursting
with stunning four-color art, MYSTERIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
is the ultimate Christmas gift book.
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