In this book the eighteenth century Enlightenment receives an important reassessment, using an astonishing range of materials and objects drawn from Europe and beyond, including artefacts from India and China, West Africa and Polynesia.

Born out of a major international dialogue held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Italy, this collection of essays presents innovative and provocative arguments about the claims of universal knowledge schemes and the different aesthetic and material forms in which such claims have been made and executed.