Callaway Arts & Entertainment is proud to present this extraordinary three-volume collectors’ set edition on the Sistine Chapel, the result of a five-year collaboration with the Vatican Museums and the Italian art publisher Scripta Maneant of Bologna, Italy. Employing ultra-high-resolution digital photography capture of the entire chapel, along with the finest Italian bookmaking craftsmanship, it is also the culmination of Callaway’s 35 years publishing the world’s finest art books. This giant, three-volume, 24 x 17 inch, 822-page magnum opus features state-of-the-art color and printing fidelity, color matched against the actual frescoes, to produce a 1:1 life scale rendition of masterworks by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Perugino, and other Renaissance artists as the world has never seen them.

The Vatican Museums has limited the worldwide publication to 1,999 copies with only 600 available in the English language for the world. The work will never be reprinted.

To create the ultimate book of this masterpiece, a team of photographers made more than 270,000 images over the course of consecutive 65 nights, while the Sistine Chapel was closed. Using a 33-foot-tall scaffold and rig to capture every inch of the chapel with advanced optics and digital photography, the team was able to utilize three-dimensional reconstruction software to stitch together seamlessly all 270,000 individual frames to reproduce the Chapel to an unprecedented level of color and detail. The result is the first opportunity in history for viewers to see the frescoes as Michelangelo and the other artists painted them, with images so detailed and sharp and immersive that you feel that you are there next to the artist, seeing in extreme close-up the precise colors, textures, even the artists’ individual brush strokes. 

The words of Antonio Paolucci, former director of the Vatican Museums, accompany the reader on the journey through the Sistine Chapel as he unveils each scene depicted in the magnificent art: the commissions and stories behind the masterpieces, the hidden details, the colors, the vigorous brushstrokes in a race against time in fresco painting techniques, the expression in the eyes and gestures of the characters portrayed.

Antonio Paolucci is an Italian art historian and curator. In 2007 he was appointed director of the Vatican Museums by Pope Benedict XVI, a post he held until 2017. Prior to becoming Director of the Vatican Museums, Paolucci was, for nearly twenty years, the superintendent of the Polo Museale Fiorentino as well as the Director General for Cultural Heritage in Tuscany. His responsibilities included overseeing sites in Florence such as the Uffizi Gallery, the Pitti Palace, the Boboli Gardens, and the Workshop of Precious Stones (for which he was previously the Director from 1986-1988), along with many other sites of significant artistic heritage. He also held the position of Minister of Cultural Heritage from January 1995 to May 1996 under the technical government of Lamberto Dini. Paolucci was appointed the Extraordinary Commissioner for the restoration of the Basilica of Saint Francis after the earthquake that struck on 26 September 1997 caused considerable damage to the patrimony of the Basilica. Throughout his career Paolucci has worked also in Florence, Venice, Verona, Mantua and other Italian cities in national art and cultural institutions. He has written many books and articles on art history and made television appearances on a variety of programs to explain and promote art and is the recipient of numerous awards for his work. 

This exceptional volume encompasses an extraordinary retrospective of paintings, all presented at Pace Gallery, which illustrates Rothko's contributions to early American modernism, his unprecedented transition into abstraction, and his groundbreaking mature work.

Pace Gallery founder, Arne Glimcher's influence in highlighting Rothko's visionary aesthetic and analyzing the progression of his career is embodied in this definitive publication, with original essays from esteemed art historians and exquisite color reproductions. Featuring an illuminating reminiscence by Glimcher, Mark Rothko at Pace faithfully preserves the artist's legacy while also extending his artistic achievements to new audiences alike.

Arne Glimcher founded Pace Gallery in 1960 in Boston. The gallery moved to New York in 1963, and has since opened locations in Beijing, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Palo Alto, and Seoul. Glimcher has played a critical role in the careers of many of the world’s greatest artists, among them Jean Dubuffet, Robert Irwin, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, and Lucas Samaras. In addition to organizing scholarly exhibitions, he has also published widely on the history of art. He is the author of the monograph Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances, published by Phaidon Press in 2012, as well as Picasso, Braque and Early Film in Cubism; Modern Art and Modern Science: The Parallel Analysis of Vision, co-authored with Paul C. Vitz; and Louise Nevelson: A Monograph. Glimcher is also the producer and director of major films including Gorillas in the Mist, The Mambo Kings, and Just Cause, as well as Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies, which he co-produced with Martin Scorsese and directed. Arne Glimcher is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the African Environmental Film Foundation, which is dedicated to environmental education through film. In recognition of his commitment to the vitality of art worldwide, Glimcher was appointed Officer in the National Order of the Legion of Honor in 2003, conferred by the President of France. He is also the recipient of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in conservation.

Mark Rothko (b. 1903, Dvinsk, Russia; d. 1970, New York), a pioneer of the New York School, is predominantly recognized for his mesmerizing Color-field paintings of immense scale produced between 1949 and 1970, which followed his works of figurative and biomorphic imagery. His stylistic explorations resulted in a proliferation of works on paper and canvas, with layered transparencies of vibrant pigments and earth tones culminating in luminous and ethereal soft-edged compositions. His approach to painting emphasized an experimental engagement with process in order to fully articulate a universal expression. Among Rothko’s artistic philosophies, he held that painting was a deeply psychological and spiritual experience through which basic human emotions could be communicated.

NEW EDITION WITH EXPANDED TEXT, WITH A FOREWORD BY JON MEACHAM: The original edition ofObama: The Call of History(2017) was the first full-fledged pictorial history of President Barack Obama's two terms in office to be published as he stepped down. Now comes an updated version that expands the narrative account and adds new perspective from author Peter Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times. 

In this new edition, Baker reports on new details about the final months of the Obama presidency as Russia sought to intervene in American democracy, and assesses the impact of Donald Trump's presidency on Barack Obama's legacy.Baker chronicles a period of great hope, tumult, accomplishments, and, yes, failure. This is the story of a young president who took on the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression, forged a controversial health care program, watched anxiously in the Situation Room after approving the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and endured mid-term election defeats. In a presidency buffeted by one crisis after another, he struggled with the Syrian civil war, a Russian invasion of its neighbor, the rise of the Islamic State, and, at home, often violent racial strife and recalcitrant Congress. 

"His first line in the history books was written the day he won office as the first African-American president, but he was determined to offer more than simply a new complexion in the Oval Office," writes Baker, Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Times, about the 44th president of the United States. Inspiring in a crowded stadium yet difficult behind the scenes, Obama was a master politician who loathed politics. To many, he was an enigma, often seen through the lens of the observer--a liberal zealot to the right, an overeager compromiser to the left. "I am a Rorschach test," he once noted. But he was the dominant figure of his age. After eight eventful years, he would never be the same--and neither would be his country. 

Featuring expanded text , this fully updated chronicle of Obama: The Call of Historyis an in-depth account of Barack Obama's years in office, as well as an examination of his legacy as it stands today.

Peter Bakeris the Chief White House Correspondent for The New York Timesresponsible for covering President Trump and his administration. He has previously covered three other presidents for the Timesand Washington Post: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. He is the author or co-author of five books, including Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House, which was named one of the five Best Non-Fiction Books of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review. With his wife, Susan B. Glasser of the New Yorker, he is working on a biography of former Secretary of State James A. Baker III for Doubleday. He has won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Coverage of the Presidency twice, the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for White House Reporting twice and the Merriman Smith Award. He is also a political analyst for MSNBC. He lives in Washington D.C. with Susan B. Glasser, and their son, Theo. 

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and New York Timesbestselling author. A distinguished visiting professor at Vanderbilt University, he is a contributing writer for The New York Times Book Review, and a fellow of the Society of American Historians. 

Review Quotes and Endorsements 

"This is the best book about Obama I've ever read. It's totally objective but beautifully written and filled with new little nuggets that even I, who covered the Administration from start to finish, never knew."  

- Mary Hager, Executive Producer of "Face the Nation"

"With his unique gifts as a diligent journalist and a first-rate historian, Peter Baker has given us a compelling first look at a consequential presidency—an eight-year reign that will be studied forever. And here is where we will all start that conversation: with Baker's graceful and insightful account of Barack Obama's victories, defeats, and evolving legacy."  

- Jon Meacham, author of Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

"A masterfully written and stunningly illustrated remembrance of our forty-fourth president. Baker has emerged as the go-to journalist and sage on recent U.S. presidential events. Obama is a full-bore testimonial to Baker's graceful prose style, judicious reporting, and sterling history-minded analysis. Highly recommended!"  

- Douglas Brinkley author of Rightful Heritage: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Land of America

"This is an elegant and evocative look back at the Obama years as history, combining narrative and commentary by Peter Baker, one of our most astute observers of the modern presidency."  

- Michael Beschloss, presidential historian

"These Characters are people we know—they're our quirky neighbors, our creepy bosses, our blind dates from hell. Sharp-tongued Theophrastus, made sharper than ever in this fresh new edition, reminds us that Athenian weirdness is as ageless as Athenian wisdom." –Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, presenter of BBC's Civilisations

The more things change, the more they stay the same: Theophrastus' Characters, a classical Greek text newly translated for a modern audience, is a joyful festival of fault-finding. The book outlines 30 characters, each crystallizing a human flaw all readers will immediately recognize, and is a humorous survey of failings, follies, and bad behavior taken straight off the streets of Athens and brought into our everyday fraught and divisive social and political scene. Brilliantly illustrated by acclaimed artist Andre Carrilho, this is an irresistible treasure of a book.

WHEN ARISTOTLE WROTE that "comedy is about people worse than ourselves," he may have been recalling a hard-edged gem of a treatise written by his favorite student, Theophrastus. Theophrastus' Characters is a joyous festival of fault-finding: a collection of thirty closely observed personality portraits, defining the full spectrum of human flaws, failings, and follies. With piquant details of speech and behavior taken straight off the streets of ancient Athens, Theophrastus gives us sketches of the mean, vile, and annoying that are comically distorted yet vividly real.

Enlivened by Pamela Mensch's fresh translation—the first widely available English version in over half a century—Theophrastus' Characters transports us to a world populated by figures of flesh and blood, not bronze and marble. The wry, inventive drawings help envoke the cankered wit of this most modern of ancient texts. Lightly but helpfully annotated by classicist James Romm, these thirty thumbnail portraits are startlingly recognizable twenty-three centuries later. The characters of Theophrastus are archetypes of human nature that remain insightful, caustic, and relevant.

James Romm is an author, reviewer, and the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annadale, New York. His reviews and essays have appeared in the London Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. His books include The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton University Press, 1992), Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire (Vintage, 2012), Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (Vintage, 2014), The Age of Caesar: Five Roman Lives (W. W. Norton, 2017), and How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Princeton University Press, 2018) .

Pamela Mensch is a translator of Herodotus, Plutarch, Arrian, and Diogenes Laertius. Her translated texts include Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: Diogenes Laertius (Oxford University Press, 2018), Alexander the Great: Selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius (Hackett, 2005), The Landmark Arrian: The Campaign of Alexander (Anchor, 2012), Lives that Made Greek History: Plutarch (Hackett, 2012), and Histories: Herodotus (Hackett Classics, 2014). She lives in New York City.

André Carrilho is a designer, illustrator, caricaturist, and animator from Lisbon, Portugal. He has shown his work in group and solo exhibitions in Brazil, China, France, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. His work has been published by Harper’s, New York, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, among other publications.

Review Quotes and Endorsements

"At a time when bad behavior flourishes, even among our leaders, these dead-on portraits of boors, braggarts, and blowhards have never felt more current."  

- Francine Prose, author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club

"André Carrilho is one of the most original caricaturists working today, and in Characters his swank surprises in every instance. Ahead of even his own curves, this contemporary artist turns out to be the perfect illustrator to point up the timelessness of the ancient Greek’s witty observations."  

- Edward Sorel, author of Mary Astor's Purple Diary

"If there’s anything new to learn from Characters, a series of personality portraits written by the ancient Greek Theophrastus (c. 371 - c. 287 BC), it is that gluttons, chatterboxes, drunks, idiots, and others are not unique to any time or place in human history. This robust little volume of character sketches has been widely published and translated since its first appearance twenty-three centuries ago….Translated by Pamela Mensch with vibrant pen-and-ink illustrations by acclaimed caricature artist André Carrillo, this edition includes insightful annotations by Bard College classics professor and Guggenheim recipient James Romm.”  

- Literary Features Syndicate

"There are always people on your gift list that 'have everything' or are so esoteric that they deserve an equally out-of-the box gift. Theophrastus’ Characters: An Ancient Take on Bad Behavior is just that gift."  

- Gerry Furth-Sides, Coast to Coast Newspaper

"These Characters are people we know—they’re our quirky neighbors, our creepy bosses, our blind dates from hell. Sharp-tongued Theophrastus, made sharper than ever in this fresh new edition, reminds us that Athenian weirdness is as ageless as Athenian wisdom."  

- Mary Beard, author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome

An inherently absorbing, deftly crafted, and wonderfully entertaining read that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking, Theophrastus' Characters: An Ancient Take on Bad Behavior is unreservedly recommended for personal, community, college, and university library collections.  

- Midwest Book Review

“…usefully pocket-size volume…presenting classic pen-portraits of liars, slanderers and other scoundrels.”

- The Washington Post