Art of Rome, Etruria and Magna Graecia

Early on, Greek settlers brought their culture to the welter of small tribes and cities struggling for supremacy in what we now call Italy. The Greeks created ceramics, statues, paintings, and buildings worthy of the highest achievements of their homeland before lapsing into barbarism as the Romans embarked on their long climb to world domination and rule. In bringing about the political unity of Italy, the Romans absorbed the cultural elements of the peoples they conquered--especially the Greeks, and not least through the medium of the mysterious Etruscans--until step by step Italy came to form a single artistic unit with its center at Rome. The end of the Roman Republic ushered in an age of imperial grandeur with lavish mosaics and wall paintings, precious cameos and coins, and an outstanding architectural heritage. The standard of what we now regard as distinctively Roman art spread throughout the Empire, now taking on a classical purity that reflects Greek models, now blossoming with a baroque exuberance into forms that, many generations later, were to delight and inspire Renaissance Europe. Beautifully illustrated in this book are the dancers, wrestlers, warriors, horsemen, centaurs, gods, goddesses, and other themes that, throughout Antiquity, moved the peoples of the Mediterranean lands to the heights of artistic achievement. Above all, however, superb photos of the buildings that still survive to astound the modern tourist emphasize that it was in the field of architecture that the creative spirit of the age truly excelled. 251 plated, 108 in full color, map, and chronological tables are all included.