To mark the exhibition "Colosseum. An icon", Electa is publishing The Colosseum Book, which illustrates some of the many aspects of the post-Antique fortunes of the amphitheatre.
English edition.
This book describes the building as an architectural model, recounts the legend of the gladiators, the Grand Tour, the effect of Christianity on the amphitheatre, its ideological re-use during totalitarian regimes, and how the monument has been perceived in the visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries (in comics, films, videogames and advertising). The book contains a vast and very original range of images and quotes from literature with eloquent associations, and presents a great deal of little-known or unpublished material, interpreted in a continuous and coherent relationship with the Colosseum, a building that has acted as a marvellous mirror of the history of the city and the world, and been an endless source of inspiration for writers, painters, and film producers right up to the present day.