{"product_id":"book-awlb","title":"Mysteries of the Middle Ages","description":"After the long period of cultural decline known as the Dark Ages, Europe experienced  a rebirth of scholarship, art, literature, philosophy, and science and began to develop  a vision of Western society that remains at the heart of Western civilization today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By placing the image of the Virgin Mary at the center of their churches and their  lives, medieval people exalted womanhood to a level unknown in any previous society.  For the first time, men began to treat women with dignity and women took up professions  that had always been closed to them. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The communion bread, believed to be the body  of Jesus, encouraged the formulation of new questions in philosophy: Could reality  be so fluid that one substance could be transformed into another? Could ordinary  bread become a holy reality? Could mud become gold, as the alchemists believed? These  new questions pushed the minds of medieval thinkers toward what would become modern  science. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Artists began to ask themselves similar questions. How can we depict human  anatomy so that it looks real to the viewer? How can we depict motion in a composition  that never moves? How can two dimensions appear to be three? Medieval artists (and  writers, too) invented the Western tradition of realism. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On visits to the great  cities of Europe—monumental Rome; the intellectually explosive Paris of Peter Abelard  and Thomas Aquinas; the hotbed of scientific study that was Oxford; and the incomparable  Florence of Dante and Giotto—Cahill brilliantly captures the spirit of experimentation,  the colorful pageantry, and the passionate pursuit of knowledge that built the foundations  for the modern world.","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49340730638640,"sku":"BDawlb","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/677482-awlb-Square.jpg?v=1736402836","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-awlb","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}