The art of the early Christians retains over the centuries its power to move us today by its freshness, the richness of its symbolism and its fusion of pagan and Christian imagery. This book fully illustrated with plates, line drawings and diagrams, provides a lucid and comprehensive introduction to Christian art and architecture from its beginnings to the age of Charlemagne. An introductory chapter traces the growth, after the relaxation of the early Christian mistrust of art, of a complex iconography to represent the Christian mysteries and to recall the Saviour. Later chapters discuss in detail the development of Church architecture from the private house to various adaptions of the basilica throughout the Roman Empire. Dr. Syndicus explains not only the general principles inspiring the building of martyriums, baptisteries and mausoleums, but also examines particular examples in Rome, Byzantium, Ravenna, North Africa, Germany and Spain, providing reconstructions of many churches some subsequently destroyed. He traces too developments in iconography up to the impact upon Christian art of the vigorous primitive art of the barbarian migrants which culminated in the Carolingian renaissance.