The Tempietto del Clitunno near Spoleto. Vol. 1: Text, Vol. 2; Illustrations (review)

200 Reviews are Jane Chance's imaginative approach to the construction of the female subject by Marguerite Porete, Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe, and Marjorie Curry Woods' illuminating discussion of the devotional implications of the acquisition of literacy amongst w o m e n in late medieval England. The third group of three essays discuss medieval and postmedieval religious w o m e n in a variety of modern contexts; this group is the most distant from the Liege w o m e n and their influence'. Ulrike Wiethaus writes acutely on modern American uses of medieval religious women, yet some m a y find her wish to limit modern understandings of these w o m e n to the politically desirable troubling. Luce Irigaray's discussion of feminine spirituality, which uses an exhibition of Early Modern paintings of beguines as a touchstone, is a work of great poetic insight and rhetorical skill, published here in English for thefirsttime. However, Irigaray's decision not to support her remarkable assertions, or to ground them in an historical context, limits their usefulness. The last essay in the volume, Antonia Lacey's 'Dialogue Between Catherine of Siena's Writings and Irigaray's Theories', for m e has interest only as a kind of classroom exercise. It m a y be more productive for medievalists to consider that they are the ones w h o should be making general, theoretical claims about topics such as female spirituality on the basis of their historical knowledge of the subject, rather than to give priority to theoretical understandings which are not so based. Jennifer Carpenter c/o Centrefor Medieval Studie University ofSydney Emerick, Judson J . , The Tempietto del Clitunno near Spoleto. Vol. 1: Text 2: Illustrations, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press 1998; cloth; pp. xiv, 446; 232 b / w illustrations; R.R.P. US$105.00. This is an important study of the Tempietto del Clitunno, a small bu overlooking the Via Aurelia near Spoleto. The Renaissance architect, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72), believed it was an ancient R o m a n temple that was transformed into a church in the Middle Ages. This view lasted until Reviews 201 the end of the nineteenth century. N o w Professor Judson Emerick has shown conclusively that it was erected in the early Middle Ages as a church, albeit erected with reused ancient building materials. The book is divided into three parts. In the first Emerick gives a detailed description of the building, based on an architectural survey of the existing remains. Superficially the building does look like a small Roman temple. Four Corinthian columns and two piers sustain an architrave and a triangular pediment in its classical-looking facade. They stand on a high podium, which forms the narthex of the church and under which is a T-shaped room. Originally there were stairs on either side of the podium leading to two lateral entrance porticoes, each provided with a colonnade, architrave and pediment. These gave access to the narthex. East of that is a rectangular nave and an apse. A columnar screen originally stood in front of the apse, framing an aedicula with a reliquary shrine. The building is richly decorated. While the piers in the facade are fluted, two of the columns have spiral flutes and two are imbricated (adorned with overlapping laurel leaves). They support three types of ancient Corinthian capitals. The architraves carry inscriptions, invoking God 'of the angels', 'of the prophets' and 'of the Apostles', perhaps quotations from an early litany, sometimes used against the Arians. The pediments are each decorated with a carved Latin cross within an acanthus vine-scroll. Frescoes of Christ, Saints Peter and Paul, two angels, a cross and two palm trees in the apse have recently been restored. After describing the building Emerick reviews the literature on the subject. Visual records, including Renaissance drawings, later engravings and early photographs, are studied for the evidence they contain about the original form of the Tempietto. In Part T w o Emerick gives an archaeological analysis of the structure. From this he distinguishes two phases of construction: the first consists of the main body of the nave; the...