Turners Visions Of Rome

Turner was deeply affected by the world in which he lived, the sciences that explained it, and the conflicts and accomplishments of his society. He wove these strands into the dense fabric of the historical pictures he created, pictures that were extremely varied, complex, original, and controversial. In Angel in the Sun Gerald Finley untangles the various thematic strands running through Turner's art, including the intersection of private and public histories, classical and biblical history and contemporary events, and science and religion, and shows how Turner's use of light and colour played an important role in conveying these ideas. Angel in the Sun includes over 130 illustrations in colour and black and white that reveal Turner's remarkable achievement as a painter of historical subjects. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the book will appeal not only to art historians and landscape theorists but also to historians of science and literature.

Thomas Ashby (1874-1931), the first scholar and third Director of the British School at Rome died at a tragically young age when he fell from a train. His 'Roman Campagna in Classical Times' remains a classic work of topographic research. This book, written by another former Director, tells the story of his life as an academic, as the Director responsible for building the British School at Rome in the Valle Giulia, as an ambulance driver in the First World War, as an avid photographer and, in the author's view, as the victim of the British tendency towards dark moral judgement.