I and others have written about this book in several threads in the past and I am happy to announce that Angelus Press (with who I have no real connection with) has finally released the updated version. Now, many of the photos in the book are ours, we provided them to Angelus at no cost because of how important we think this book is.

This book is simply amazing, it was written by Father Joseph Tylenda, who spent the better part of almost 2 decades detailing 175 churches in Rome. The book contains 51 of these. This is not a religious book, but instead is the most complete guide to these amazing churches in Rome that one could imagine. He provides floor plans of each one and then goes on to chronicle essentially every detail in each of these in a tour type manner. He provides the information on who did what, when, and how. He provides a short history on each of these churches.

If you plan on visiting Rome, this is a must have book. It originally went out of print in the early 1990s, but it was so good that used copies were constantly selling on eBay for over $200. It is absolutely the most complete history and detailed study of these amazing places you could possibly want.

Here is the link...

http://www.angeluspress.org/oscatalo...cipal-churches

dave

Thanks for this information. It looks like a great book.

Well spotted - and thanks, that does look interesting!

No sign on AmazonUK yet although the US site has it, so maybe one day - but can I really stupid, and ask if anyone has an idea of the size... 'coffee table', conventional paperback or somewhere inbetween?

The PDF extract at 100% seems about 10" x 7", which probably makes transatlantic shipping of its 400+ pages a bit too costly!!

Peter

oh how i wish that we were returning to Rome this/next year so i could justify getting this book.

I am not in the least religious, but one of my favourite activities in Rome is to wander into any church, and explore its nooks and crannies.

thanks for posting this, daveesl.

Do libraries still accept requests - only I seem to remember ours used to charge about £1.50 to buy in a book that people asked for?

I take it there still are libraries!

Peter

The book is 6" x 9" and weighs less than 2 lbs. This means it can be shipped anywhere. Right now only the paperback version is available. From what I understand a hardback version will also be available in the near future.

I got several pre-release copies because we supplied some of the photographs for the book and gave some updates on the churches. Our television mini-series is actually based on the book, but it won't be out until next year sometime.

This is actually NOT a religious book in the true sense of the term, as its total focus is on the individual churches and basilicas, their histories and contents.

Father Tylenda spent an enormous amount of time researching and verifying when he originally wrote this and the publisher spent well over a year updating it. The original version only had a single Vasi drawing of the facades of the individual churches (done in the 1750s), where the new version has the full color photos.

This is far more than just a travel guide, it could be used by any art history, humanities or religious studies course as a primary text book. One of the things that I really liked in both the original and new version is that Tylenda created a bibliography of each artist, sculptor and architect. So if say you are interested in seeing paintings by Caravaggio, you are provided the relevant pages. In addition he has a "dictionary" included for those that wish to learn what certain terms mean, such as a Pendentive or a Spandrel or Trabeation.

I am not certain if they will be selling on Amazon or not, as Amazon takes a substantial chunk of the selling price. But I know in speaking with the publisher they are considering it.

Father Tylenda, who is now in his early 80s, and is the Chaplain at Scranton University is an amazing man with a wealth of knowledge in the areas of art history, architecture and religious studies.

This book is a buy, whether going to Rome or not. And I get nothing for my photos, so this isn't some back door way of me earning money, I gave them full rights to use my entire library of over 19,000 shots because I felt this book is so important. There is no other place that has such a huge compilation of information on the locations that literally changed Western civilization.

dave

i just ordered the book.
thanks for this posting on this forum !!
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