Books by Dr Ross King

Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with its immense, terracotta-tiled cupola, retains a rare power to astonish. This book tells the story of how the cupola was raised, from its conception to its consecration.

Beginning with the year that Manet exhibited his ground-breaking Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe and ending in 1974 with the first 'Impressionist' exhibition, the author plunges into Parisian life during a ten-year period full of social and political ferment with his usual narrative brilliance.

In 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.