This book recreates the reality and myth of Greece as perceived, reflected and shaped by nineteenth-century artists, architects, archeologists and writers from England, France, Germany and Italy who made their way to Greece, exploring and recording the temples and other ancient sites, the landscape and also the people of the time, their customs and costumes. Athens, Delphi and Parnassus, Olympia and Mycenae, and many other sites and localities redolent of history are shown in exquisite oils, watercolors and drawings made on the spot. Numerous quotations from contemporary descriptions, diaries and letters are included, as are a host of more fanciful works by artists who stayed at home, but were stirred by the views and accounts brought back and by that great event reverberating throughout Europe: the reclaiming by the Greeks of their independence.