Empire of Death

A Cultural History of Ossuaries and Charnel Houses

Inbunden, Engelska, 2011

480 kr

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Beskrivning

In this tour de force of original cultural history, Paul Koudounaris takes the reader on an unprecedented international tour of macabre and devotional architectural masterpieces in nearly 20 countries. This is the first book to bring together the world’s most important charnel sites, ranging from the crypts of the Capuchin monasteries in Italy and the skull-encrusted columns of the ossuary in Évora in Portugal, to the strange tomb of a 1960s wealthy Peruvian nobleman decorated with the exhumed skeletons of his Spanish ancestors. Illustrated with specially taken photographs of sites rarely open to the public and forgotten archive images of others long destroyed, this mesmerising, shocking and deeply moving book is an essential memento mori for our modern age.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2011-10-03
Mått:229 x 310 x 25 mm
Vikt:1 544 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Antal sidor:224
Förlag:Thames & Hudson Ltd
ISBN:9780500251782

Utforska kategorier

Socialhistoria och kulturhistoria inom Historia och arkeologi

Mer om författaren

Paul Koudounaris has a doctorate in Art History from the University of California and has written widely on European ossuaries and charnel houses for both academic and popular journals.

Recensioner i media

'The extraordinary displays of human bones in Europe’s charnel houses may now seem utterly bewildering to us, but 'The Empire of Death' reveals fascinating insights into these misunderstood religious monuments' - Metro

Innehållsförteckning

Introduction: A Dialogue with Death • 1. Ars Moriendi: The Early Charnel Houses • 2. The Golden Age: Counter-Reformation Macabre • 3. The Triumph of Death: Nineteenth-Century Visions in Bone • 4. Heavenly Souls: Spiritualism and Mythology in The Bone Pile • 5. Forget Me Not: Ossuaries as Commemorative Sites • 6. Resurrecting the Dead: Conservation and Reconstruction