1 March 2016
In this book, sixteen chapters explore painters and architects as agents in a European network of communication that involved texts, images, and material culture. The metaphor of the Republic of Letters illuminates exchanges between the cultural centre of Rome and different European peripheries. The role of the Low Countries stands out which gave rise to a variety of innovations, from the first studies of the Early Christian Catacombs, to new reproductive techniques for ‘paper museums’, and seminal interest in Egyptian antiquities.