Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism by Erwin Panofsky

It is sometimes thought that art, philosophy, and literature develop in hot-house environments, communicating little with each other, influencing only slightly each other's developments and discoveries.

Though this view has often been challenged, the modern tradition, dependent in large measure upon attitudes that emerged in the romantic age, often imagines that genius and inspiration somehow overleap their cultural ancestry and surroundings. Erwin Panofsky, in Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism, indicates with grace and humanistic breadth the profound correlation between the development of Gothic architecture and the growth of scholastic philosophy. He suceeds, as perhaps few others have, in showing how architectural style and structure provided visible and tangible equivalents to the scholastic definitions of the order and form of thought. Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism is therefore not only an important contribution to the history of art, but to the history of ideas as well.

Meridian 1973 paperback edition in good condition, see photos.