"A guided tour through the magical world of illusions, The Vatican to Vegas takes the reader from lavish Baroque fantasies of the seventeenth century to the Electronic Baroque of today. The "scripted spaces" described by Norman Klein are punctuated with devices widely used in special effects: shocks, surprise twists, grand fakes, and copies. These elaborate deceptions allow the viewer to assume the role of a central character. But, as Klein points out, real power in this world of fakery rests with whoever controls the illusion - be it the pope, the president, the imagineer, the designer, or the studio executive."--Jacket.