The brilliance of Peter Paul Rubens' career changed forever the perceptions of painting and painters. Here was a man whose astonishing gifts were allied to a personality so cosmopolitan, engaging, and virtuous that he could mingle as easily with kings as with fellow painters. Rubens' character and achievements fascinated his contemporaries, and these three biographies of the artist show the impact of his life and art on three very different observers. Baglione, an Italian painter and art historian, records the remarkable success of Rubens visits to Rome; Sandrart, a German painter, writes on the later years of his career; and de Piles, one of the greatest early art critics, offers an evaluation of Rubens style that remains one of the most influential ever written.

Here is our garden. The gate is not locked But don't venture in if you're easily shocked. We admit that our plantings won't please everyone; But if you're unsettled, that's part of the fun. See these creepers - like this one, that's wrapped round your feet? They creep terribly fast, and they only eat meat. Oh, and though they look pretty, please don't pick the flowers; They pick back, and their nails are far sharper than ours. You've seen how our chickens don't scratch in the mud? They're vampire hens, and they much prefer blood. And our goat, with the red eyes like smouldering coals? Satan's his name: he devours human souls. But don't be too frightened: all's not what it seems. These flora and fauna are tissues of dreams; And the monsters we dredge from the depths of our brain Fall asleep when we wake...or they'd drive us insane.

Collaboration The Mind's Eye is a collaboration between the artist's emotional response to the poems and the immediacy of the poet's reaction to nature and personal encounters. The Poet Gail Gowers Cotton is a member of the Poetry Society and the British Haiku Society. Her poems have appeared in the Societies' journals as well as in other specialist magazines. She "scatters" her work by leaving poems on buses, in cafes and tucked into library books. The Mind's Eye is her second book. Her inspiration comes from nature and personal encounters including memories of Ireland, Africa, North Wales and visits to Sydenham Hill Woods, Dulwich Picture Gallery and the Horniman Museum in South London, where she now lives. The Artist Pat Keay graduated as a painter at the Edinburgh College of Art in 1971. She has worked as an artist and designer in Scotland, Kenya and London and now lives in Worthing. Read more on www.patkeay.com. The illustrations come from Pat's spontaneous reaction to the essence, rather than the detail, of a particular Haiku.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.