Volume I, Goddesses and Gods, is devoted to the deities and cult practices of classical antiquity: a world full of demanding and susceptible divine powers whose benevolence had to be earned. As for the Deliciæ of the second volume, this term was used in Roman antiquity to describe collectors’ items. But today they are much more than just aesthetic delights. These images of ancestors and genre subjects, these precious vases, furniture decorations, and funerary realia, have a great deal to tell us about the societies and the individuals who made them.

From one volume to the other, deities and deliciæ converse and dialogue, telling us about brothers and sisters who lived more than two thousand years ago. They present a sparkling panorama of Graeco-Roman antiquity, extending from Neolithic Greece to the late Eastern Roman Empire and taking in the Italic world, archaic Cyprus, classical Greece, and Hellenistic Egypt. Each of these objects is here situated within the historical context that gave rise to it.

Thus the reader of these books is invited on a journey in the company of the gods and mortals of Mediterranean antiquity. Under the direction of Isabelle Tassignon, curator of the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art’s Classical Archaeology Collection, the book opens with an essay by Professor Henri Lavagne, a member of the Institut de France. This publication also includes contributions from several noted researchers specializing in ancient history.

Available in English and French.