In the twelfth century, Christians in Europe began to build a completely new kind of church not the squat, gloomy buildings we now call Romanesque, but soaring, spacious monuments flooded with light from immense windows.

Beautifully illustrated and written, filled with astonishing insight, Universe of Stone embeds the magnificent cathedral in the culture of the twelfth century-its schools of philosophy and science, its trades and technologies, its politics and religious debates-enabling us to view this ancient architectural marvel with fresh eyes. Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind. But what did it mean to those who constructed it in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries-and why was it built at such immense height and with such glorious play of light, in the soaring manner we now call Gothic?In this eminently fascinating work, author Philip Ball makes sense of the visual and emotional power of Chartres and brilliantly explores how its construction-and the creation of other Gothic cathedrals-represented a profound and dramatic shift in the way medieval thinkers perceived their relationship with their world. Universe of Stone Chartres Cathedral and the Invention of the Gothic by Philip Ball. Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral by Philip Ball and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at. Chartres Cathedral, south of Paris, is revered as one of the most beautiful and profound works of art in the Western canon. Universe of Stone by Philip Ball, 2008, Penguin Random House edition, in English. Universe of Stone by Philip Ball, 2009, HarperCollins Publishers edition, in English.