The medieval cathedral was not simply a building but an entire system of knowledge, its sculptures, stained glass and architectural forms arranged to communicate a particular understanding of the world.

In The Gothic Image, French art historian Émile Mâle reconstructs this visual language, examining the religious, philosophical and literary traditions that informed the great cathedrals of thirteenth-century France. Moving between biblical narratives, medieval encyclopaedias, saints' lives, classical antiquity and the influence of Eastern Christian traditions, Mâle demonstrates how apparently decorative images belonged to an elaborate structure of symbolic meaning. The cathedral emerges as something like a vast illustrated text, in which theology, natural history, morality and cosmology were made visible to an audience whose relationship to images was considerably different from our own.

Originally published in French as L'Art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, and translated into English by Dora Nussey, the book remains an important work in the study of medieval iconography. Extensively illustrated, it is as much an investigation into how a culture organised knowledge as it is a history of Gothic art.

Harper & Row, New York, 1972. First Icon Editions edition. Paperback. Good condition, with minor cover creasing and light general wear. Internally clean and unmarked.