Architecture and Statecraft: Charles of Bourbon's Naples, 1734-1759

University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013. Q1 - A first edition (no additional printings) hardcover book in very good condition in very good dust jacket. Dust jacket has some wrinkling, chipping and tiny tears on the edges and corners, dust jacket and book have some bumped corners, light discoloration and shelf wear. 10"x9.5", 223 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. The eighteenth century was a golden age of public building. Governments constructed theaters, museums, hospices, asylums, and marketplaces to forge a new type of city, one that is recognizably modern. Yet the dawn of this urban development remains obscure. In Architecture and Statecraft, Robin Thomas seeks to explain the origins of the modern capital by examining one of the earliest of these transformed cities. In 1737 King Charles Bourbon of Spain embarked upon the most extensive architectural and urban program of the entire century. A comprehensive study of these Neapolitan buildings does not exist, and thus Caroline contributions to this new type of city remain undervalued. This book fills an important gap in the scholarship and connects Charles's urban improvements to his consolidation of the monarchy. By intertwining architecture and sovereignty, Thomas provides a framework for understanding how politics created the eighteenth-century capital.. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall.