Cave Church of Paul the Hermit (Yale University Press)

St. Paul is generally considered the first Christian hermit, and the monastery built around his cave in Egypt is one of the very oldest. This sumptuous volume grew out of a conservation project of the monastery's superb wall paintings, which were broadly produced in two phases in the 13th and 18th centuries. It provides a full and detailed description of the paintings, their iconography and conservation, as well as a general history of the monastery, and the rise of Coptic monasticism. The text is complimented by numerous full colour reproductions of the paintings.