The Middle Ages: A Big Book of History, Art, and Literature

Before you is the «Big Book of the Middle Ages», which gathers the works of notable figures in art, history, and literature to shed light on the so-called «Dark Ages». This period left its unique mark on painting, literature, architecture, and sculpture. It gifted the world such outstanding figures as Saint Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Giotto di Bondone, Dante Alighieri, Andrei Rublev, and Theophanes the Greek. An era lasting a thousand years, which defined the development of culture for many centuries to come.
Natalia Ivanovna Basovskaya, Doctor of Historical Sciences, will talk about the most significant events through the biographies of the brightest representatives of the era. Paola Volkova, an art critic and recognized figure in the arts, will not only depict the «cultural landscape» of the Middle Ages but also analyze the reasons for its formation and its influence on subsequent periods.
It is not enough to have stories from specialists to truly feel the era, because only the works written during that time can convey all the shades, all the uniqueness of the distant period. That is why the collection includes several original works: the «Divine Comedy» by Dante Alighieri, the chivalric romance «Tristan and Isolde», as well as the most famous treatise of the outstanding theologian and philosopher of the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas - «Summa Theologiae».