This book is Michel Comtes personal analysis of the neoclassical style. Employing an eclectic approach including original photos, reproductions of neoclassical treasures, and reworked images of masterpieces such as Michelangelos Pietà and Jacques-Louis Davids The Coronation of Napoleon, Comte traces the classical aesthetic and its rebirth as the neoclassic throughout the ages. From the Parthenon to Gianni Versaces designs, from Bernini to Albert Speers Reich Chancellery, the style has persisted and transformed itself again and again, as empires rose and fell around it. In Comtes words, the neoclassic demonstrates a dream of perfection, one we are seduced by even as we know its danger: History tells us that grandeur is destined to fail.