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REVIEWS 255 and nuance these hypothesis by looking closely at three of the most interesting goddesses, Nature (chaps. 2–3), Lady Love (chap. 4), and Eternal Wisdom or Sapienza (chap. 5), considering their representations in a variety of poems, visionary texts, artworks, and allegories. The sixth chapter is dedicated to the cult of the Virgin. The concluding chapter offers a critical synthesis of imaginative theology. This book is a very intense work, and offers an immense amount of material that could be used in theological and philosophical studies as well as in literature and art history. The major strength of Newman’s study is the extensive historical information that she is able to offer and organize. The book is well written and well documented; offering a superb synthesis of different material, it gives important insights for any student or scholar. It can also be used as a reference book on medieval and renaissance culture. ROSSELLA PESCATORI, Italian, UCLA Objects, Images and the Word: Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2003) 326 pp., ill. When I find it difficult to simply sum up a book in a few hundred words, I take it as a good sign. The theme of this collection of papers is loosely based around the relationship of art and liturgy, which broadly refers to any service, rite, or sacrament recorded and codified by the church. The field of discussion is very broad, but the stakes are high when one considers these organized and structured rites as a powerful, manipulative tool which reinforced church doctrines and beliefs, and sometimes even secular and political values. Liturgical art encompasses more than just tools used in rituals; they were the visual representations of the word and religious belief. These arts were meant to express divine concepts as physical images, and such a complex matter could not be dictated by simple equations. Even as they were used to mold the beliefs of the time, each medium was itself changed and adapted to contemporary receptions and values. This compilation of studies is the results of a conference organized by the Index of Christian Art, which promise to be but a introduction to further studies. Illuminated manuscripts make for a convenient starting point for this discussion . Better than any other medium, they preserve texts and images in direct relation to one another. John Lowden opens with a discussion that challenges the common distinction between the publicly liturgical and the privately devotional . He examines a variety of books used for liturgy, recordings of liturgy, and books that may have no liturgical content but were used in a service. His discussion traces the developments of religious texts from seventh-century Gospels to late tenth-century prayer books to fully developed liturgical books in the early fifteenth century. The relation and connection between these texts are mixed and Lowden reconsiders the rigid definitions of what may be categorized as strictly liturgical. Rather than two separate but cross-referential concepts , Lowden sees the liturgical and the devotional more like two ends of a long continuum. Adelaide Bennett and Elizabeth Teviotdales’s discussions nicely compliment Lowden's because of their more traditional approach but all three are equally effective in their approaches. Bennett traces the adoption of images of REVIEWS 256 saints from the liturgical manuscripts to private devotional manuscripts. However , she keeps the two as separate and distinct categories, and regards it as a shift from the intercessory powers of an officiating priest to a belief in the direct intercession of the saint which may be accessed in a private devotional manuscript. On the other hand, Teviotdale’s approach is more traditional and she focuses on a single, strictly liturgical manuscript, the Stammheim Missal from Hildesheim from the end of the twelfth century. She observes how the sequence of the richly illuminated images was determined by the structure of the manuscript texts, which in turn were dependent on the liturgical calendar. The carefully planned and executed program of the large illuminations complimented certain feasts and emphasized the role of St. Bernard’s intercession. Turning to more three dimensional structures, Michael Curschmann examines the close interrelationship between the devotional and liturgical...

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