This book locates itself in a well-established research field within the study of the classical world, the Classical Tradition, recently developed, for instance, in the companion edited by C. Kallendorf, A Companion to the Classical Tradition (2007), which has already become a standard reference book, or in A. Grafton, G.W. Most, S. Settis (edd.), The Classical Tradition (2010). It has become fashionable, too, to analyse the Classical Tradition according to the more recent approaches to the Classical world envisaged from the point of view of the contemporary modernity, examining the ways it has been assimilated and interpreted by modern authors from the perspective usually known as Classical Reception Studies. Important reference works on reception have been published in the last few years, such as C. Martindale and R.F. Thomas (edd.), Classics and the Uses of Reception (2006); or L. Hardwick (ed.), A Companion to Classical Receptions (2008). In that regard, S. (p. ix) defends the approach of the book as a rereading of the Classical world from varied perspectives and from a substantially historical standpoint, dispelling any doubts.

The book, none the less, includes other facets showing a very original approach: the work is not a mere collection of essays, but a collaboration of experts in the very different fields of Classics, Comparative Literature and Art History. This breadth of vision allows the reader, from the very formulation of the section titles into which the book is divided, to appreciate the diversity of treatments: ‘Overview’, ‘Archetypes’, ‘The Imaginary’, ‘Making a Difference’, ‘Contrasts and Comparisons’.

In turn, each section is developed in a good number of chapters that try to reflect the complexity of the interrelations of the Graeco-Roman world and the Western world throughout history. In this regard, it must be said that the authors have been sincere when analysing pieces of the Classical Tradition easily identifiable in different moments of European thought and artistic development: the Middle Ages, Italian Renaissance, French Enlightenment, German Romanticism and the English nineteenth century.

It is true, however, that in this selection of historical moments, as noted in the prologue, the English, Italian, German and French languages and cultures have been prioritised, leaving aside other historical moments equally fundamental for the understanding of the Classical Tradition in Europe, as for example, the Spanish seventeenth century or the modern Greek twentieth century. This choice, which offers a wide view of the Western tradition of the Classical world, consecrates the risky idea that the central nucleus of the Classical Tradition is limited to the countries or languages mentioned above, even though it is perhaps more relevant to point out what phenomenon of the Tradition or what particular author was relevant for each European country and each historical moment. It is worth citing in this respect the laudable work by G. Highet, The Classical Tradition (1949): even if Highet's analysis has been reformulated and surpassed, his breadth of vision would be desirable in any volume with a generalist ambition.

The first section, ‘Overview’, offers a survey of the phenomenon of the Classical Tradition in the Western world, and provides a good introduction to the topic, as much for the specialist as for the interested student. There are compiled the theoretical bases of the influence of the Graeco-Roman world throughout the centuries: education, the study of Classical philology, the presence of Antiquity in museums and its prestige in the creation of national identities, the importance of religion and philosophy, the different conceptions of love (homosexual, pedophilic, pornographic), the decisive role of translation, the classical presences within popular culture, especially in cinema, along with others.

The other four sections are shorter and are thematically ordered. The second, ‘Archetypes’, looks over some concepts that have caused a ‘rebound effect’, that is to say that from their first appearance they have been continuously reflected: ‘in the classicizing ages their ancient forms have direct legacies’ (p. 251); a good example of this phenomenon is the dome, with many representations from the Pantheon to the modern Millennium Dome, a building reserved for big events, especially music performances, which makes clear the constant presence of this architectural element throughout the centuries. Another one would be the concept of the hero, from its stunning appearance in Homer until its Hollywood development, in a timeless continuity. The usually problematic topic of literary genres too, since it is not possible anymore to write literature without keeping them in mind.

The third part, ‘The Imaginary’, examines different ways of thinking: myth, the city, especially Rome, forms of government, real and imagined, and the order of things, paying special attention to the place taken by men and women in that order. The great conquest of Greek thought, man as the ideal measure, both physically (with the creation of a beauty canon, never abandoned although contested) and intellectually (with the creation of Humanism, a concept that defines an ethical mode of relationship among human beings and that is characteristic of Western society), has apparently been undermined (p. 339). The moment of the post-human era has come, if we pay attention to the brutality that devastates the world.

The fourth part, ‘Making a Difference’, is a surprising assembly of three pairs of works that have been significant, according to the authors, for having been ‘particular respondents to the ancient world from later ages’ (p. 343). The first one is made by two essential figures in the artistic assimilation of the ancient world: Petrarch, in the fourteenth century, and Winckelmann in the eighteenth century. The second pair is Vitruvius' De Architectura and Longinus' On the Sublime, treatises, in both cases, whose popularity does not start in Antiquity but in later periods, in which those treatises were read and studied, and helped to build, especially theatres, and to develop a rhetoric of fine speaking. The third couple contrasts two different temperaments towards the influence of Antiquity: Machiavelli's active nature and Richard Wagner's contemplative one. This is perhaps the most risky part of the book, since it opposes authors and works that have little in common, to the extent that at some points the reader feels that the information is simply juxtaposed.

The fifth and last part, ‘Contrasts and Comparisons’, is, as declared by the authors, a chapter devoted stricto sensu to the Reception of the Classical World, where they offer a comparison of three very different domains as a response to the Classical world: painting, political thought and poetry. For the first domain, they analyse the female nude in Titian, David and De Chirico; in the second, the chosen thinkers are Hannah Arendt, Karl Popper and Leo Strauss; and in the third group English poetry is brought to the centre with Milton, Tennyson and Eliot.

A brief epilogue closes this dense work, which is concluded with a large bibliography and an indispensable index of works, authors and concepts.

The reader will find in this book an original agenda, with suggestive ideas, unexpected comparisons, audacious approaches to artistic manifestations other than literary. Even if occasionally one can miss an author or not share the point of view of the authors, the large amount of information upon which their method is based and the authors' analytic rigour are two significant merits that encourage one to keep on reading with interest and profit.