This volume explores the concept of magnificence as a social construction in seventeenth-century Europe.

An exploration of the important role played by elaborate clockwork in relations between China and Europe from the late sixteenth to the late eighteenth centurie

Contrary to what Kant believed about the Dutch (and their visual culture) as “being of an orderly and diligent position” and thus having no feeling for the

A Magnificent Faith explains how and why Lutheranism - a confession that derived its significance from the promulgation of God's Word - became a visually magnif