Some 500 years ago, Sandro Botticelli, a painter of humble origin, created work of unearthly beauty. An intimate associate of Florence’s unofficial rulers, the Medici, he was commissioned by a member of their family to execute a near-impossible project: to illustrate all 100 cantos of The Divine Comedy by the city’s greatest poet, Dante Alighieri. A powerful encounter between poet and artist, sacred and secular, earthly and evanescent, these drawings produced a wealth of stunning images but were never finished.

Durant lucidly describes the philosophical systems of such world-famous “monarchs of the mind” as Plato, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Spinoza, Kant, Voltaire, and Nietzsche. Along with their ideas, he offers their flesh-and-blood biographies, placing their thoughts within their own time and place and elucidating their influence on our modern intellectual heritage. This book is packed with wisdom and wit.

Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late 30s took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic by Lucretius—a beautiful poem containing the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles.

A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.

The most thorough statement of one of Emerson's recurrent themes, the need for each individual to avoid conformity and false consistency, and follow his or her own instincts and ideas. It is the source of one of Emerson's most famous quotations, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." This essay is a considered a watershed moment in which transcendentalism became a major cultural movement. An American classic.

Tolstoy’s autobiographical essay is a dissection of his soul, a study of his life’s movement away from the religious certainties of youth, and a vital piece of reading which contextualizes the great works he is best known for. Marking the point at which his life moved from the worldly to the spiritual, Tolstoy’s philosophical reassessment of the Orthodox faith is a work that holds vital spiritual and intellectual importance to this very day.

Best-selling historian and philosopher Will Durant devoted his entire life to studying the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. Here is a summation of Durant's work, as he presents the best of world history. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events in simple and exciting terms, it is a concise liberal arts education.

Few people had a more profound effect on Christianity in the 20th century than G. K. Chesterton. The Everlasting Man, written in response to an anti-Christian history of humans penned by H.G. Wells, is considered Chesterton’s masterpiece. In it, he explains Christ’s place in history, asserting that the Christian myth carries more weight than other mythologies for one simple reason—it is the truth.

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: commodity, beauty, language and discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.

Here in one volume are both the Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series from one of the most influential philosophers in American history. Although Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps America’s most famous philosopher, did not wish to be referred to as a transcendentalist, he is nevertheless considered the founder of this major movement of nineteenth-century American thought. Emerson was influenced by a liberal religious training; theological study; personal contact with the Romanticists Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; and a strong indigenous sense of individualism and self-reliance.

Tolstoy claims that all good art is related to the authentic life of the broader community and that the aesthetic value of a work of art is not independent of its moral content.

Walter Benjamin was an icon of criticism, renowned for his insight on art, literature, and philosophy. This volume includes his views on Kafka, with whom he felt a close personal affinity; his studies on Baudelaire and Proust; and his essays on Leskov and Brecht’s epic theater. Illuminations also includes his penetrating study “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, an enlightening discussion of translation as a literary mode, and his theses on the philosophy of history.

Saint Francis of Assisi is one of the most influential men in the whole of human history. This acclaimed biography of Saint Francis examines the life of a pure artist, a man "whose whole life was a poem". Here is the Saint Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, and who invented the crèche. Yet Francis also acknowledged the mystic responsibility to communicate his divine experience.

At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.

Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.

A performance of the tragi-comedy by the Royal Shakespeare Company. When a young woman is offered the choice of saving a man's life at the price of her own chastity, what should she do? The political and moral corruption of Vienna has driven Duke Vincentio into hiding while his deputy governor, Angelo, is left to revive the old discipline of civic authority. Angelo's first act is to imprison Claudio, a young nobleman who has gotten his betrothed, Juliet, with child.

This version of Nature is an 1843 revision to the popular essay written and published in 1836. In the original essay, Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism and suggested that reality can be understood by studying nature. Within the essay, Emerson divides nature into four usages: commodity, beauty, language and discipline. These distinctions define how humans use nature for their basic needs, their desire for delight, their communication with one another, and their understanding of the world.

Here in one volume are both the Essays: First Series and Essays: Second Series from one of the most influential philosophers in American history. Although Ralph Waldo Emerson, perhaps America’s most famous philosopher, did not wish to be referred to as a transcendentalist, he is nevertheless considered the founder of this major movement of nineteenth-century American thought. Emerson was influenced by a liberal religious training; theological study; personal contact with the Romanticists Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth; and a strong indigenous sense of individualism and self-reliance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Nature" is perhaps the greatest original work of philosophy written by an American. This specially-prepared edition includes a foreword on the origin and significance the book.

Best-selling historian and philosopher Will Durant devoted his entire life to studying the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. Here is a summation of Durant's work, as he presents the best of world history. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events in simple and exciting terms, it is a concise liberal arts education.

C. S. Lewis had one of the great minds of the 20th century. Many know Lewis as an author of fiction and fantasy literature, including the Chronicles of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Others know him for his books in apologetics, including Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. But few know him for his scholarly work as a professor of medieval and Renaissance literature. What shaped the mind of this great thinker?

At its heart, De Profundis is a love letter and is better known as the De Profundis papers. Written in 1897, while Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading Gaol, De Profundis would become one of his best-known works. The papers include Wilde's account of living a lavish lifestyle and his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, both of which he credited for his eventual downfall and imprisonment. The second half of the papers is Wilde's account of prison life and his spiritual awakening.

Based on a thorough study of Greek life and civilization, of Greek literature, philosophy, and art, The Greek Way interprets their meaning and brings a realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. Miss Hamilton's book must take its place with the few interpretative volumes which are permanently rooted and profoundly alive in our literature.

One of Nietzsche’s earliest works, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) is a remarkable source of inspiration. It is here that the philosopher expresses his frustration with the contemporary world and urges man to embrace Dionysian energy once more. He refutes European culture since the time of Socrates, arguing that it is one-sidedly Apollonian and prevents man from living in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life.

Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

A wild and unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy, and religion to better understand the mercurial genius of William Blake.

Phaedrus lures Socrates outside the walls of Athens, where he seldom goes, by promising to share a new work by his friend and mentor, Lysias, a famous writer of speeches. This dialogue provides a powerful example of the dialectical writing that Plato uses to manifest ideas that are essential to human existence and to living a good life. Phaedrus shows how oral and written forms of language relate to each other and to philosophy.

The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval worldview, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the middle ages and renaissance. It describes the 'image' discarded by later years as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe". This, Lewis' last book, has been hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind".

Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord.

At the beginning of his career, Joseph Campbell developed a lasting fascination with the cultures of the Far East, and explorations of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy later became recurring motifs in his vast body of work. However, Campbell had to wait until middle age to visit the lands that inspired him so deeply. In 1954, he took a sabbatical from his teaching position and embarked on a year-long voyage through India, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and finally Japan.