Tower and glory

Heaven on Earth: The Lives and Legacies of the World’s Greatest Cathedrals

by Emma J Wells Apollo, 512 pages, £40 (Publishes on 1 September but available to preorder now)

Among the many legacies the Middle Ages left to the modern world, the medieval cathedral must rank as one of the most precious. The cumulative work of the medieval cathedral “was intended to be the metaphorical and physical exemplar of the Celestial City, the Heavenly Jerusalem... No wonder Gothic cathedrals exploded with light and the gleam of gold and jewel-encrusted walls, coloured glass and luminous pearls.”