The book I am further exploring has the title “Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia”, it is written by Robert Adam. In a previous task, I had a look at the dedication of the book to the king of England. This connection interested me and I decided to find a book which has more information on the author and the circumstances in which the book was written.
In the search engine “Alice” I used “Diocletian” as topic of conversation and looked up the author’s name. Amongst other books briefly mentioning the author, I found “Modern Architecture Theory”, by Harry Mallgrave. The book was written recently, it therefore may give a more distanced and objective look on the authors live and circumstances. There are paragraphs in the book describing Robert Adams motives in writing about the ruins at Dalmatia.
The second book I chose is called “The Roman Villa in the Mediterranean Basin” it is written by Annalisa Marzano. It discusses roman architecture in the Mediterranean. According to Alice, the book discusses the influence and style of architecture under the emperor Diocletian. As Robert Adams “Ruins of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro” is a reconstruction and depiction of the ruins of the palace, it might be interesting to learn about architecture in the near context of it. Robert Adam might have used other ruins of roman architecture in Dalmatia as a reference for his reconstruction. Furthermore, the book gives insight into the live of emperor Diocletian. It has several paragraphs on the palace in Spalatro.
By using the search engine Alice and key words such as “emperor”, “Diocletian”, or “ruins”, I was able to find two books with an interesting relationship to the one written by Adam. The first one might clarify the authors context, aims and limitations and the second one might broaden the knowledge on emperor Diocletian.