Beautifully written and newly revised to include the museum's most controversial era, this sparkling social history reveals the ideas and financial power behind the Metropolitan's dramatic 12-year history. Photos.

The former director of the famed New York museum recounts his activities at the art world's pinnacle, from wooing important patrons to battling for acquisitions.

Set like a stronghold south-west of the Caucasus mountains, Armenia is caught between East and West. Briefly a great empire in the first century BCE under King Tigranes the Great, Armenia was later incorporated first by the Sasanian and then the Byzantine Empires. Armenian art, literature, religion and material culture have reinterpreted elements of a wide variety of cultures. Spanning over two and a half millennia, the history of Armenia and the Armenian people is a series of riveting tales, from its first mention under the Achaemenid King Darius I to the independence of the Republic of Armenia from the Soviet Union.With the help of the Bodleian Libraries' magnificent collection of Armenian manuscripts and early printed books, this volume tells the story of the region through the medium of its cultural output. Together with introductions written by experts in their fields, close to one hundred manuscripts, works of art and religious artefacts serve as a guide to Armenian culture and history. Gospel manuscripts splendidly illuminated by Armenian masters feature next to philosophical tractates and merchants' handbooks, affording us an insight into what makes the Armenian people truly unique, especially in the shadow of the genocide that threatened their annihilation a hundred years ago: namely their spirituality, language and perseverance in the face of adversity. VISIT THE EXHIBITIONArmenia: Treasures from an Enduring CultureOctober 2015 - January 2016Bodleian Library, Oxford

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Border Chronicles comes a novel of Florentine historical romance—the continuing saga of The Silk Merchant’s Daughters... After her sisters become the scandals of Florence, Lucianna Pietro d’Angelo finds that the only wealthy man who’ll have her for his wife is an aging bookseller whom Lucianna comforts in his final years. When he passes away, she inherits his shop—and a sizable fortune affording Lucianna comfort in widowhood. Then Robert Minton, Earl of Lisle, visits her bookshop. The Englishman is not only dashing and handsome, he’s a trusted courtier of Henry VII. Lucianna’s parents cannot deny the spark of attraction between their daughter and the earl, so they scheme to send her to London. There, Lucianna steps out of the shadow of her quiet Florentine life, pursuing a love she never dreamed possible—one unfolding in the court of the new Tudor king.

Delineate the politicians, business people, artists, immigrant laborers, and city dwellers who are the key players in the tale. In tracing the park's history, the writers also give us the history of New York. They explain how squabbles over politics, taxes, and real estate development shaped the park and describe the acrimonious debates over what a public park should look like, what facilities it should offer, and how it should accommodate the often incompatible.

Originally published by Viking Press in 1971; republished vy the Modern Library in 1998 with a new foreword.

With unprecedented and unrestricted access to his family correspondence, and other new material in private archives, Spurling documents a lifetime of desperation and self-doubt exacerbated by Matisse's attempts to counteract the violence of the 20th century in paintings.

"Includes special edition full-length Natalie Merchant CD."--Cover.