Few buildings have been as important to Western culture as the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. One of the Seven Wonders of antiquity, it was destroyed during the Middle Ages, leading countless architects, antiquarians, painters and printmakers in Early Modern Europe to speculate upon its appearance. This book – the first on its subject – examines their works, from erudite publications to simple pen sketches, from elegant watercolours to complete buildings inspired by the monument. Spanning the period between the Italian Renaissance and the discovery and archaeological excavation of the Mausoleum's foundations in the 1850s, it covers the most important cultural contexts of Western Europe, without neglecting artworks from Peru, China and Japan. The monument's connexion with themes of widowhood and female political power are analysed, as are the manifold interactions between architecture, text and image in the afterlife of the Mausoleum. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘From the Renaissance through the Victorian era, architects mused on the surviving ekphrastic descriptions of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, producing imaginative reconstructions and original designs. The essays comprising this volume explore key moments in the rich afterlife of a major monument, illuminating its place in the history of western architecture.'

John Pinto - Princeton University