Designed to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at the Royal Academy in London, The Genius of Rome, 1592-1623 is a sumptuous catalog of essays that celebrates what its editor sees as "the international confluence of artistic talent in Rome around 1600 that fostered what would become known as baroque art." Between 1592 and 1623, three popes, Clement VIII, Paul V, and Gregory XV spent "spectacular sums on churches, chapels, palaces and urban renewal," deliberately re-creating Rome as a center of artistic life and commissioning the work of (amongst others) Caravaggio, Annibale Carracci, Adam Elsheimer, and Peter Paul Rubens.