A brilliantly entertaining and innovative history of the ancient Athenians' consuming passions for food, wine and sex.

Even in an age of soaring skyscrapers and cavernous sports stadiums, the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, with its immense, terracotta-tiled cupola, retains a rare power to astonish. This book tells the story of how the cupola was raised, from its conception to its consecration.

How did Spain, a barren, thinly populated country, somewhat isolated from the rest of Europe become the world's first superpower? This title presents an account of a brutal adventure - a ceaseless quest for land, gold and slaves that made Spain, both for its conquered people and much of the rest of Europe, into a rapacious nightmare.

Leonardo is the greatest, most multi-faceted and most mysterious of all Renaissance artists, but extraordinarily, considering his enormous reputation, this is the first full-length biography in English for several decades.