The "History of World Architecture" series offers scholarship, accessibility, extensive illustration and international scope. This text examines the principal 17th-century architectural themes - "capital city", "church" and "palace" - using the most famous examples of the period in Rome, Paris, Turin and Versailles. A large section of the book is devoted to religious architecture, analysing works by Della Porta, Maderno, Mansart, Borromini, Bernini and Guarini, envisaged in both a local and European context. The book ends with a general survey of the diffusion of the Baroque in Europe, in its various local versions, up until the development of an "international style".