The most beautiful castles and palaces of Europe are presented here in 240 full-color photographs and illustrations, along with background information, historical facts and entertaining anecdotes. A treasure for lovers of history and architecture alike.
Throughout the 19th century, European royalty built extraordinary palaces to which they retreated from their "official" lives in St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere. This book offers a panorama of these fantastic estates, where leading architects, craftsmen, muralists, garden designers, and naturalists were employed at enormous expense to create a life of unsurpassed luxury. Many of the palaces are now legendary: Ludwig II's famous Neuschwanstein, which dominates the Bavarian Alps; the "Alexandra Cottage" of Peterhof, the gift of Nicholas I to his wife; the lovely Castle of Miramare built for the ill-fated Archduke Maximilian, the short-lived emperor of Mexico. The palaces are "romantic" in every sense, as creations of their time, and as places suffused with nostalgic memory. Author Jérôme Coignard provides a brief overview of each royal family and their palace's architecture and decoration, drawing on contemporary memoirs and letters. Marc Walter's color photographs are accompanied by period interior views, watercolors, and family photographs. With information on visiting hours and directions to each of the palaces, this book offers a private tour through the last courts of Europe.
Palaces of Time resurrects the seemingly banal calendar as a means to understand early modern Jewish life. Elisheva Carlebach has unearthed a trove of beautifully illustrated calendars, to show how Jewish men and women both adapted to the Christian world and also forged their own meanings through time.
Built to astonish the masses and to celebrate the magnificence of the most powerful families in the world, royal palaces and house are the reminders of a bygone era. This book tells the mysteries and legends of the buildings, and the official and secret versions of the history of their occupants. The text is complemented by a series of splendid photographs that together transport the reader on a visit to a place where the lives of royal families and their courts burned bright, and where beauty was mixed with power.