Robin Raybould's Hieroglyph, Emblem and Renaissance Pictography is the first English translation of Ludwig Volkmann's Bilderschriften der Renaissance, the classic text which promoted the symbol as a defining cultural and literary characteristic of early modern Europe. Volkmann enumerates and describes many of the works which illustrated the contemporary obsession with hieroglyph, emblem and device, particularly those from France and Germany, thus complementing Karl Giehlow's earlier Hieroglyphenkunde on the subject. Volkmann's book highlights both Renaissance theories of the image as language and the symbol as an aid to an understanding of the meaning of life and the nature of God. Raybould's translation has been described as elegant, admirable and impeccable and includes an introduction, extensive notes and several additional essays on topics relevant to the field.

The Hieroglyphenkunde by Karl Giehlow published in 1915, described variously by critics as "a masterpiece", "magnificent", "monumental" and "incomparable", is here translated into English for the first time. Giehlow's work with an initial focus on the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, the manuscript of which was discovered by Giehlow, was a pioneering attempt to introduce the thesis that Egyptian hieroglyphics had a fundamental influence on the Italian literature of allegory and symbolism and beyond that on the evolution of all Renaissance art. The present edition includes the illustrations of Albrecht Durer from the Pirckheimer translation of the Horapollo from the early fifteenth century.

Robin Raybould's The Sibyl Series of the Fifteenth Century examines the startling and sudden change that occurred in the representation of the sibyls throughout Europe during the early Renaissance. Raybould describes how and why during this period the number, names, attributes and prophecies of these archaic prophetesses were selected and stabilized thus providing new witness to the Christian message in sharp contrast to earlier representations where the sibyls had played a minor role in the history of classical and Christian divination and prophecy. The book examines all the fifteenth-century instances of these series, as well as the manuscripts which describe them, identifies the origin of the sibylline prophecies and suggests reasons for the widespread popularity of this new artistic phenomenon.

The date is 1439 and Eduardo Ferrucci, a young Italian working in a bookshop in Florence, is unwittingly trapped in a conspiracy by agents of foreign powers. He is banished to Constantinople by the Florentine authorities and forced to spy on the Greeks. The Turkish forces have surrounded the city and are on the verge of invading Europe. SCIMITAR follows the life and loves of Ferrucci in the dangerous world during the last days of the Eastern Roman Empire, his eventual betrayal, his part in the great siege of the city by the Turks in 1453, his subsequent role as ambassador for the Turkish Sultan back in Florence and his final revenge on those who had betrayed him many years earlier. But Ferrucci's first love was always books and during his exile In Constantinople he makes time to search for the remains of a secret text, part of which he had found in a Greek codex in Florence. Finally, after many years, he discovers and deciphers the whole text and is able to locate documents which have a decisive influence on the history of Renaissance culture. This edition includes an introduction by the translator describing the discovery of the original manuscript of this story as well as a transcription of one of the documents found by Ferrucci.