2008-08-11 EXTRAVAGANT AND SPECTACULAR? OH, YES!

A trip around the world not on your calendar? No worries. With a copy of this abundantly pictured (400 color illustrations) volume you can visit some of the most spectacular, most extravagant buildings to be found. Nic Barlow's glorious photographs give you better than a bird's eye view with details and close-ups never seen through a tour bus window.

Yes, the structures included in this volume are spectacular and extravagant, yet they are unique in another way as Tim Cox notes in his eloquent introduction, These follies are ..."raised for the amusement or diversion - and occasionally for the residence - of inspired patrons and artists throughout Europe......Created by popes and plutocrats, princes and postmen, these buildings stand today as mute testimony to their patrons' taste and discrimination, their passions and peculiarities."

That they certainly do, but what is perhaps almost equally fascinating are the stories that these buildings tell. There is the Rushton Triangular Lodge built in 1593 by an Edwardian gentleman, Thomas Tresham, who converted to Catholicism in 1580. Constructed on the basis of an equilateral triangle, it represents the Holy Trinity with an angelic host under the roof , and the upper story at 33 feet wide represents the age at which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Quite a different sight is found with the Villa Torrigiani in Italy which was transformed from a Tuscan villa to the very latest Baroque style, highly ornamented, boosting a parade of statues in the niches of its facade.

Who will not be amazed and amused by what is thought to be the most outre building Scotland? Dunmore House is home to a pavilion topped by a 37 foot high stone pineapple.

And so it goes with each of the 256 pages revealing one more wonder and another intriguing story.

Highly recommended.

- Gail Cooke