Painting in stone : architecture and the poetics of marble from Antiquity to the Enlightenment Spanning almost five millennia Painting in Stone tells a new history of premodern architecture through the material of precious stone. Lavishly illustrated examples include the synthetic gems used to simulate Sumerian and Egyptian heavens; the marble temples and mansions of Greece and Rome; the painted palaces and polychrome marble chapels of early modern Italy; and the multimedia revival in 19th century England. Poetry the lens for understanding costly marbles as an artistic medium summoned a spectrum of imaginative associations and responses from princes and patriarchs to the populace. Three salient themes sustained this lithic imagination : marbles as images of their own elemental substance according to premodern concepts of matter and geology; the perceived indwelling of astral light in earthly stones; and the enduring belief that colored marbles exhibited a form of natural or divine painting thanks to their vivacious veining rainbow palette and chance images