The West: From the Advent of Christendom to the Eve of Reformation

Christopher Tadgell covers the major architectural traditions of the Middle Ages, from the Romanesque architecture of the ninth and tenth centuries, built on the legacy of ancient Rome and including elements from Carolingian, Ottonian, Byzantine and northern European traditions, through to the evolution of the Gothic which heralded new, structurally daring architecture. The book ends with the Italian rediscovery of classical ideas and ideals and the emergence of the great Renaissance theorists and architects, including Brunelleschi, Alberti, and Bramante. As well as the palazzos, villas and churches of Renaissance Italy, this period saw the building of great chateaux in France, palaces in Germany and the golden-domed cathedrals of Russia.

With more than two thousand images, including many plans, The West is a beautiful, single-volume guide to the history of architecture in this period, covering the whole of Europe from Ireland to Russia and placing architectural developments within their political, technological, artistic and intellectual contexts.

Christopher Tadgell taught architectural history for almost thirty years before devoting himself full-time to writing and research, travelling the world to see and photograph buildings from every tradition and period.

Born in Sydney, he studied art history at the Courtauld Institute in London. In 1974 he was awarded his PhD for a thesis on the Neo-classical architectural theorist, Ange-Jacques Gabriel. He subsequently taught in London and at the Kent Institute of Art and Design in Canterbury, with interludes as F.L. Morgan Professor of Architectural Design at the University of Louisville and as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has lectured at universities and other learned institutions around the world, including the universities of Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Cornell and Virginia, IIT and the Graham Foundation in Chicago, and Cambridge University and the RIBA in the UK. He is a Trustee of the World Monuments Fund, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Asiatic Society, and a Member of both the British and American Societies of Architectural Historians.

Tadgell’s The History of Architecture in India (1990, several reprints, Phaidon) is the definitive one-volume account of the architecture of the subcontinent, while many publications on French architecture include the standard account in Baroque and Rococo Architecture and Decoration (ed. Blunt, 1978, Elek) and the definitive English-language monograph on A.J. Gabriel. He has contributed many articles on Indian and French architecture to The Grove Dictionary of Art and other major reference books.

Part 1: Renovation of Gravitas 1. Prologue 2. Empire Regained and Relapsed 3. The Centre: Holy Roman Empire 4. The East: Towards the Third Rome 5. The West: Post Carolingian Diversity Part 2: Refraction of Light 6. Introductions to the Gothic Age 7. Light Into Stone: The Gothic Cathedral 8. Secular Building in the Gothic Age Part 3: Revival of Classicism 9. Introduction 10. Cataclysm and Classicism at Large Epilogue: From Medieval Towards Neo-Classical Abroad Conclusion Glossary Further Reading Maps Index