One of the functions of Louis XIV's Versailles was to provide a setting for the receptions of ambassadors, heads of state, and other visiting dignitaries who conducted diplomatic and political business with France. These activities became particularly important after Versailles was proclaimed the new seat of the monarchy and government in 1682.
Diplomatic Tours in the Gardens of Versailles Under Louis XIV is the first book to examine how the vast gardens of Versailles were used for these diplomatic receptions during the reign of the Sun King (1661-1715). The gardens were the...
One of the functions of Louis XIV's Versailles was to provide a setting for the receptions of ambassadors, heads of state, and other visiting digni...
"In Old Paris" presents five descriptions of the city from 1323 to 1790. These include A Treatise of the Praises of Paris by Jean de Jandun (1323), The Description of the City of Paris by Guillebert de Mets (1407-34), A Description of Paris by the Venetian Ambassadors Secretary (1577-79), Giovanni Paolo Maranas Pleasant Critique of Paris (1692) and Letters from Paris by the Russian traveller Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1790).
Paris was changed forever by the upheaval of the French Revolution during the last decade of the eighteenth century and by the physical transformation of the city in...
"In Old Paris" presents five descriptions of the city from 1323 to 1790. These include A Treatise of the Praises of Paris by Jean de Jandun (1323), Th...
GUY DE MAUPASSANT, the master of the nineteenth-century French short story, visited Sicily in the spring of 1885 and wrote his travel memoir as a tribute to the art, architecture, people and landscape of this Mediterranean island.
He provides a vivid account of this "strange and divine museum of architecture," where Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and Norman influences combine to produce monuments of beauty and a unique Sicilian style. In a land then little touched by modern transportation, with and without guides, he traveled by train, boat, horse and foot to reach the places he had set out...
GUY DE MAUPASSANT, the master of the nineteenth-century French short story, visited Sicily in the spring of 1885 and wrote his travel memoir as a trib...
