Dr Jean Michel Massing is a Reader in the History of Art and a Fellow of
King's College, Cambridge. The first volume of Studies in Imagery, Text
and Images, consists of 25 studies grouped under four sections:
Classical Art and its Nachleben; Symbolic Languages; Saints and Devils;
Comets, Dreams and Stars. The topics include the Celto-Roman goddess
Epona, the Calumny of Apelles and its reconstructions, the Triumph of
Caesar, proverb illustration, the art of memory, emblematic and didactic
imagery, the temptations of St Anthony, as well as dreams and celestial
phenomena. They span a wide range of periods, from classical antiquity
to the nineteenth century. Vol. 2, The World Discovered, deals variously
with the relationship of European with non-European cultures,
cartography in medieval and early modern times, the representation of
foreign lands and people, and the collecting of exotic artefacts. A
central theme involves the imagery of black Africans from the Middle
Ages up to the nineteenth century.