Prompted by the recent discovery of an impressive three-meter tall late Gothic drawing of a soaring tower and spire, this book off ers a rare insight into the processes of designing and building a major gothic project. The drawing’s place and date of creation are unknown, and it corresponds to no surviving Gothic tower. Equally mysterious is the three-quarter, top-down perspective from which the tower is represented, without parallel in any other medieval drawings. Who drew this? When? And what did he hope to convey with his choice of a top-down representation of the tower? Building a Cross Tower explores these questions, and uncovers the dramatic circumstances in which this drawing was created. The fi rst part of the book links the drawing to an early 16th-century building project in the city of Rouen in Normandy, France. Rouen was then a thriving port, one of the most populous cities in France, and a vibrant construction site, where dazzling, fl amboyant creations were erected side by side with Renaissance buildings.  At the centre of this intense building activity was Roulland le Roux, the city’s leading master mason, most likely the author of the newly discovered drawing.