What was the role of images in the Western tradition? And how did they relate to the printed work? The essays in this wide-ranging collection address these questions by presenting a variety of material, including visual representations that can be read as texts and traditional book illustrations. The editors offer a critical review of visual arts and texts, encompassing thirteenth-century Spanish miniatures, Italian Renaissance painting and book illustrations, the explosion of inter-arts comparisons in the nineteenth century in the works of such diverse writers as Blake, Mallarme and D'Annunzio, and the modern debate on the visual arts.