First published in 1999, this volume examines Sir John Soane (1753-1837) who was one of Britain's most inventive architects. His achievements include the Bank of England and the world's first picture gallery at Dulwich, buildings of international importance. His country estate work, inspired by classical antiquity, ranges in scale from the remodelling of existing country houses, such as Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire and Aynhoe Park in Northamptonshire, to simple outbuildings. Here we see the emergence of the key themes of his style and the results of his precise attention to proportion, design detail, and light and shade. These are among Soane's finest works. Making full use of the Soane Museum and country house archives, Ptolemy Dean here examines ten country house projects, reconstructing the creative transactions between client and architect, architect and skilled craftsman. It is impossible to understand Soane's intentions without the drawings, sketches and letters which enable us to trace the process of design. With the author's own drawings in watercolour to illustrate Soane's use of light and space, and beautiful photographs by Martin Charles, Sir John Soane and the Country Estate offers an enthralling insight into the work of a great architect. An illustrated inventory, the first fully researched guide to Soane's country house practice, details an architectural legacy that has rarely been matched.

Reports of the surveyors of Westminster Abbey in the twentieth century provide a wealth of information on this most important building. The annual reports of the Surveyors of the Fabric in the twentieth century give much detailed information about the maintenance and major restoration of Westminster Abbey and its contents. The Surveyors, William Lethaby, Walter Tapper, Charles Peers and Stephen Dykes Bower, had to deal with many problems and challenges between 1906 and 1973. Not least of these were two World Wars and the most extensive programme of cleaning and re-decoration since the timeof Sir Christopher Wren. Lethaby brought to light original decoration on medieval tombs, lost to sight for centuries under grime and shellac used by his predecessor Gilbert Scott; Tapper had to carry out emergency restoration tothe fan vault of Henry VII's chapel after a stone crashed to the floor; Peers was required to deal with the evacuation of hundreds of treasures during the 1939-45 war and with repairs to bomb damaged areas after it. Dykes Bower, meanwhile, was the most controversial of the Surveyors of this period. His replacement of medieval roof timbers drew criticism, although these were riddled with decay and death watch beetle. The nave could have looked vastly different if his design for a Cosmati work floor had gone ahead. But the Abbey interior would not look as it does today without his massive contribution to the cleaning of the brown stonework and re-decoration of the dirty and damaged Tudor and Jacobean monuments. The Abbey's current Surveyor, Ptolemy Dean, outlines the legacies of the work of these Surveyors of the modern age in his introduction; Christine Reynolds, the Abbey's Assistant Keeper of the Muniments, adds valuable notes from other sources within the archives to supplement the fascinating accounts of work carried out in the most historically significant church in England.

Best known for his 1906 discovery of lost texts in the Archimedes Palimpsest, Danish scholar Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854 1928), professor of classical philology at Copenhagen, published numerous editions of ancient mathematicians, including Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga (also reissued in this series). Between 1898 and 1907, he published in three parts the extant astronomical works of Ptolemy, active in second-century Alexandria. The Ptolemaic system, his geocentric model of the universe, prevailed in the Islamic world and in medieval Europe until the time of Copernicus. This second part of Volume 1, published in 1903, contains a brief Latin preface and the Greek text of Books 7-13 of Ptolemy's major astronomical treatise, known as the Almagest. It demonstrates how to use astronomical observations to construct cosmological models and includes tables that make it possible for celestial phenomena to be calculated for arbitrary dates."

Best known for his 1906 discovery of lost texts in the Archimedes Palimpsest, Danish scholar Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854 1928), professor of classical philology at Copenhagen, published numerous editions of ancient mathematicians, including Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga (also reissued in this series). Between 1898 and 1907, he published in three parts the extant astronomical works of Ptolemy, active in second-century Alexandria. The Ptolemaic system, his geocentric model of the universe, prevailed in the Islamic world and in medieval Europe until the time of Copernicus. Volume 2, published in 1907, contains a brief preface and a substantial prolegomena in Latin, followed by the Greek text of Ptolemy's shorter astronomical works, including Phaeis aplanon asteron, a treatise on the phenomena of the fixed stars, and Hypotheseis ton planomenon, his planetary hypotheses representing the most influential statement of his geocentric model, provided here with a facing-page translation into German."

Best known for his 1906 discovery of lost texts in the Archimedes Palimpsest, Danish scholar Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854 1928), professor of classical philology at Copenhagen, published numerous editions of ancient mathematicians, including Archimedes and Apollonius of Perga (also reissued in this series). Between 1898 and 1907, he published in three parts the extant astronomical works of Ptolemy, active in second-century Alexandria. The Ptolemaic system, his geocentric model of the universe, prevailed in the Islamic world and in medieval Europe until the time of Copernicus. This first part of Volume 1, published in 1898, contains a brief Latin preface and the Greek text of Books 1-6 of Ptolemy's major astronomical treatise, known as the Almagest. It demonstrates how to use astronomical observations to construct cosmological models and includes tables that make it possible for celestial phenomena to be calculated for arbitrary dates."

Ptolemy's "Almagest" is one of the most influential scientific works in history. A masterpiece of technical exposition, it was the basic textbook of astronomy for more than a thousand years, and still is the main source for our knowledge of ancient astronomy. This translation, based on the standard Greek text of Heiberg, makes the work accessible to English readers in an intelligible and reliable form. It contains numerous corrections derived from medieval Arabic translations and extensive footnotes that take account of the great progress in understanding the work made in this century, due to the discovery of Babylonian records and other researches. It is designed to stand by itself as an interpretation of the original, but it will also be useful as an aid to reading the Greek text.

OF the means of prediction through astronomy, O Syrus, two ara the most important and valid. One, which is first both in order and in effectiveness, is that whereby we apprehend the aspects of the movements of sun, moon, and stars in relation to each other and to the earth, as they occur from time to time; the second is that in which by means of the natural character of these aspects themselves we investigate the changes which they bring about in that which they surround. The first of these, which has its own science, desirable in itself even though it does not attain the result given by its combination with the second, has been expounded to you as best we could in its own treatise by the method of demonstration. We shall now give an account of the second and less self-sufficient method in a properly philosophical way

When Dr Eben Alexander wrote about his own startling near-death experience in Proof of Heaven, he was contacted by countless people from all walks of life. His story had touched them personally and they in turn had their own miraculous experiences of the afterlife to share with Eben. In The Map of Heaven, Eben recounts the astonishing stories he has heard on his travels, from near-death experiences and encounters with angelic beings to inspiring messages from departed loved ones. Each account helps us to understand just how vast the universe really is. Drawing on these accounts and lessons from religious leaders, philosophers and scientific investigations into the role of consciousness, Eben explores our true place in the universe and what exactly exists beyond death.

The "Tetrabiblos" of the famous astronomer and geographer Claudius Ptolemaeus (ca. 100-178 CE) of Egypt consists of four books, the title given in some manuscripts meaning 'Mathematical Treatise in Four Books', in others 'The Prognostics addressed to Syrus'. The subject is astrology, which in Ptolemy's time as down to the Renaissance was fused as a respectable science with astronomy. Translations and commentaries are few, and only three Greek texts had been printed (all in the 16th century) before the present one and the one begun by F. Boll and finished by Emilie Boer in 1940.

Ptolemy, considered a proto-Humanist by some, combined the principles of Northern Italian republicanism with Aristotelian theory in his "De Regimine Principum," a book that influenced much of the political thought of the later Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the early modern period. He was the first to attack kingship as despotism and to draw parallels between ancient Greek models of mixed constitution and the Roman Republic, biblical rule, the Church, and medieval government.In addition to his translation of this important and radical medieval political treatise, written around 1300, James M. Blythe includes a sixty-page introduction to the work and provides over 1200 footnotes that trace Ptolemy's sources, explain his references, and comment on the text, the translation, the context, and the significance.

Ptolemy's "Geography" is the only book on cartography to have survived from the classical period and one of the most influential scientific works of all time. Written in the second century AD, for more than fifteen centuries it was the most detailed topography of Europe and Asia available and the best reference on how to gather data and draw maps. Ptolemy championed the use of astronomical observation and applied mathematics in determining geographical locations. But more importantly, he introduced the practice of writing down coordinates of latitude and longitude for every feature drawn on a world map, so that someone else possessing only the text of the "Geography" could reproduce Ptolemy's map at any time, in whole or in part, at any scale.

Here Berggren and Jones render an exemplary translation of the "Geography" and provide a thorough introduction, which treats the historical and technical background of Ptolemy's work, the contents of the "Geography, " and the later history of the work. Also included here are unique color reproductions of maps from manuscripts and early printed editions of the text, representative of the beautiful and practical cartographic artistry that flowed from Ptolemy's work. Historians of science, classicists, and anyone who enjoys beautiful maps or map making will find this work an indispensable addition to their library.