Edwin Mullins – författare

Provence owes its name to Julius Caesar who described the region as ';the Province of Rome.' Edwin Mullins seeks out hidden traces of that ancient world along with the many spectacular monuments that today adorn the cities of Nmes, Arles, Vienne, and Orange. He tells the story of how the Romans came to invade Provence, how they stayed to colonize it, and how they transformed Provenal cities into imitations of Rome. His narrative also tells how the Emperor Constantine brought about the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity from his favorite city of Arlesand how the Romans were eventually driven out by the Visigoths. Roman Provence is also a guide to the principal sites in the region as well as those rarely visited, with separate chapters on various Roman achievements: triumphal arches, aqueducts, farming, city life, bridges and road-building, temples and shrines, theaters and amphitheaters.

Edwin Mullins has had a long and distinguished career as both an arts journalist and a presenter of TV arts programmes. In Search of Art is a collection of vividly told recollections of both his extraordinary adventures, visiting famous artists, and the discoveries he made when on assignments for indulgent newspaper editors in the days of generous budgets. Blessed with a prodigious memory, and fully armed with the notebooks and diaries he has always kept, he has included in this collection of true stories, some accounts which resemble very closely some of the situations in which William Boot found himself in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.

This narrative history masterfully weaves together the sweeping events surrounding the so-called “Babylonian captivity” of the popes into the broader story of 14th-century Europe, a turbulent time of transition between Middle Ages and Renaissance when seven successive popes resided in Avignon in the south of France.