Cathedrals and Churches of Europe

One of the best books on churches I have ever read.

The pictures of the inside of the cathedrals are brilliant well done.

Wonderful book wonderful stories

Quite simple level of information about items. Superficial.

Much was expected based on the excellent series (Romanesque, Gothic &c) by Toman but this is a nothing - oversized, overrated, overly-blown-up pictures yet almost devoid of text - added to a bizarre almost random choice of sites worthy of the dreaded Mr Harris (Harris's (sic) Guide to Churches')

Huge book. Lovely photos.

as catedrais e igrejas são, por natureza, uma representação da reverência humana ao divino. As fotos e imagens desses templos nos remetem à essa dimensão transcendente da vida. São magníficas e espelham com perfeição o que representam.

Beautiful book. I was stunned how detailed and beautiful the churches and cathedrals of Europe actually are. I have never been to Europe. The pictures made my two favorite beautiful churches in my city, look like someone's home made chapel in their home. Really, no comparison. The book was plastic shrink wrapped, and the cover and pages appear crisp and perfect and brand new. The pictures are large enough to enjoy the details. Many pictures are as large, or nearly as large as the page, ~ 10.5 X 14 inches. Strangely, in my book, pages 379 - 398 were not caught up in the binding, and can slip out of the book, as one combined unit, with separate pages. But, they slip right back in compactly, the book appears perfect, and so not worth my energy or time to exchange this book. Published in Germany, printed in Italy, 2015. Translation from German. Of the little I have read so far of my new book, care was made to make the book very informative. The book is a joy to me, who has not traveled to Europe, and would be a good memory for people who have been blessed with the opportunity to visit these sites. I think that a person could have peaceful, simple fun, just by opening the book to a favorite page, and having it next to them in their home while they pray. Of course, other regular and normal people would be happy with the book just on their coffee table for their guests to enjoy. I would say that if you like beautiful churches, then the purchase of this book is worth your money. Enjoy.

I don't know quite what to make of this book - there's really nothing else like this anywhere....it's a very big, strange-looking, yet spectacular book. Part of this comes from the selection of churches involved: a good portion come from the Baltic region of Germany (which gives a brown to reddish brown overall look to the book throughout, probably due to the preponderance of brick & sandstone architecture in that area). So you now know that is not yet another hit parade of the same list of 4 & 5 star churches (such as Reims, Amiens & Chartres) that seem to pop up in every book on pre-Renaissance era architecture. Not that they are missing, but a lot of new buildings in here thats never been seen before. Strangely enough, even the English & French churches seem to share this overall brownish look of the German buildings. I figured these German photographers such as Achim Bednorz, Florian Monheim, Rolf Toman, etc. (who have no equals when it comes to photographing Gothic architecture) just wanted to do book on churches with a different look...buildings of brick and sandstone from towns dominated by the merchant classes, not aristocracy. Not to fear however - there are still enough of the big familiar buildings in here....a nice section on the Paris area (St. Denis, Ste Chapelle, etc), nice photos of some major English churches (Gloucester Cathedral, Lincoln, Exeter, Kings College Chapel Cambridge, etc). Where this book leaves its competition behind is the huge scale of their photographs, most of which appear to leap off the pages. You'll never see such big photos of churches in any other book...which I why I gave this 5 stars.

After falling in love with cathedrals in Europe on a recent trip, I purchased this gorgeous coffee table book for my best friend since third grade. She graduated with an Art History major with emphasis in architecture many years ago before going onto law school so I knew she would love it as much as I did. I just gave it to her last week for a very late Christmas gift and she was overwhelmed. The beauty of each page after page of glorious pictures showing cathedrals is simply stunning. We both loved that it is divided up by countries so you can get a feel for what you've already visited and what you would like to see on a later trip (hopefully sooner rather than later). Thank you for the perfect gift for my sweet friend! Well done!