Album Roman Mythology A Traveler's Guide from Troy to Tivoli - Thames and Hudson

All roads lead to Rome. Places and events throughout the ancient world provided the Romans with a rich tapestry woven from stories of their past. The city itself was a melting pot of people from across the Mediterranean region and beyond, each bringing their myths and legends about heroes and heroines, gods and goddesses. Roman citizens wholeheartedly embraced these stories of kings and queens with nymphs, a prophetic child discovered in the field, and the very founding of Rome itself. Myths formed the backdrop for rituals and customs of daily life. David Stuttard takes the reader on a journey through eighteen magnificent sites of the ancient Roman world, following the footsteps of Aeneas and his companions from Troy through Greece, North Africa, and Sicily to Italy, traveling with their descendants to Rome, while also enjoying excursions to Tuscany and Lazio to explore later legends. Each chapter begins with a vivid description of the location and landscape, followed by related myths and stories, as well as any rituals performed in antiquity. Drawing on great works by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Ovid, Horace, and Virgil, along with specially prepared illustrations and information on key events and relics visible today, this offers a fresh perspective on a timeless fascination.

Thames & Hudson was founded in 1949 by Walter and Eva Neurath. Their greatest passion and mission was to create a “museum without walls” and to make the world of art and leading scholarly research accessible to a broad audience. To reflect international perspectives, the company's name combined the rivers flowing through London and New York, represented in its logo by two dolphins symbolizing friendship and intelligence, one facing east, the other west, suggesting a connection between the Old World and the New.

Today, still an independent family-owned company, Thames & Hudson is one of the world’s leading publishers of illustrated books, with over 2,000 titles printed. It publishes high-quality books across all areas of visual creativity: fine arts, applied arts, decorative arts, performing arts, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and music, as well as archaeology, history, and popular culture. The list of children’s books is also expanding. Headquartered in London with a sister company in New York and branches in Melbourne, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In Paris, another subsidiary, Interart, distributes English-language books in France.

History of Thames & Hudson

Walter Neurath was born in Vienna in 1903. In 1938, he left his hometown—where he ran an art gallery and published illustrated books—for London. Initially, he worked as a production director at Adprint, a company founded by Viennese émigré Wolfgang Foges. Neurath and Foges developed a pioneering concept now known as book packaging (or co-publishing), where book ideas are developed, commissioned, produced, and sold by publishers operating across different markets and languages to create large editions and reduce unit production costs. Neurath’s concept was the first of many innovations introduced by Thames & Hudson into the publishing world.

Seeking to continue book packaging in a second edition and recognizing the need to amortize the high costs of producing illustrated books, Neurath founded his own publishing house, with offices in London and New York in the fall of 1949. Eva Neurath, who arrived in London from Berlin in 1939, was a co-founder.

Of the ten titles published on Thames & Hudson’s first list in 1950, *English Cathedrals*, with photographs by Martin Hürlimann, was the first and achieved the greatest success. The company’s strong conviction from the very beginning regarding the longevity of books remained evident, as it stayed in print until 1971. In the first year of publication, *Out of My Later Years* by Albert Einstein also appeared, an early indicator of the program’s breadth. As the list gradually expanded—growing from ten titles in 1950 to 144 in 1955—the company moved its offices to High Holborn and in 1956 relocated to a Georgian townhouse at 30 Bloomsbury Street, near Bedford Square, becoming the epicenter of book publishing in London. The manufacturing remained at this address, eventually expanding to five houses by 1999, when it returned to High Holborn.

In 1958, Thames & Hudson launched one of its most renowned series, *World of Art*, which became the foundation of a highly diverse list. Characterized by pocket-sized editions and black spines, the series expanded in just seven years to include 49 titles. Nearly 60 years later, the series boasts over 300 titles, which, according to Christopher Frayling, are “stained with paint copies” in every art school across the country.

Other significant series that added depth and prestige to the list include *Ancient People and Places*, edited by Glyn Daniel, who from the 1950s contributed to pioneering interest in archaeology, both in book form and television. Over 34 titles have been published in this series over 34 years. The large-format *Great Civilizations* series, launched in 1961, featured contributions from esteemed scholars such as Alan Bullock, Asa Briggs, Hugh Trevor-Roper, A. J. P. Taylor, and John Julius Norwich.
After building one of the most important publishing houses in Europe in less than two decades, Walter Neurath died in 1967 at the age of 63. Sculptor Henry Moore remarked that “his death was a loss to our cultural life.” Sir Herbert Read noted that Neurath “more than anyone else was responsible for the revolution in art publishing” and was “one of those rare entrepreneurs who successfully combine business acumen with idealism.” Eva Neurath became chairwoman. Walter’s son, Thomas, who joined the company in 1961 along with his sister Constance, became managing director; Constance later served as artistic director for several decades. Both Thomas and Constance remain on the Thames & Hudson board, as do Thomas’s daughters, Johanna and Susanna.

From producing the first commercial edition of *The Book of Kells* to the triumphant publication of the six-volume *Vincent van Gogh – Letters*, from technical innovations like “French folds” to the controversial documentation of graffiti art in *Subway Art*, Thames & Hudson has always been at the forefront, both culturally and in production techniques.

The year 2016 marked an extraordinary new chapter for the company, announcing publishing partnerships with two of the world’s most important museums: the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Art and scholarship thus remain at the heart of Thames & Hudson’s publishing program, which remains true to its core principle: providing a “museum without walls”.
Today, Thames & Hudson is a recognizable international brand, a symbol of British publishing. Its extensive catalog includes thousands of engaging titles, many of which are prestigious collectible editions.

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