The Pagan Dream Of The Renaissance

Plot

Joscelyn Godwin demonstrates how pagan forces existed side-by-side - sometimes uneasily - with the official doctrines of the Church, and explores how pagan themes were used to enhance both public and private life. He has chapters on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a pagan fantasy by a Dominican friar (which Godwin recently translated to wide critical acclaim); a Christian church filled with pagan allusions; the 'cabinets of curiosities' where rulers retired into their own private pagan worlds; 'garden magic' and the origins of opera.