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B O O K S
The Church of Santa Maria
Donna Regina: Art, Iconography,
and Patronage in Fourteenth
Century Naples. Janis
Elliott and Cordelia Warr,
eds. Aldershot, Hants., England;
Burlington, VT: Ashgate,
2004. 234 pp. ISBN
0754634779. $99.95.
Reviewed by Renée
Köhler-Ryan
This magnificent book
comprises a multi-disciplinary
discussion of the import
of a church in Naples, Italy.
The architectural, artistic,
historical, political, and, of
course, religious, implications
of the church of Santa
Maria Donna Regina become
increasingly apparent as one
reads each contribution.
The spatial design of the
church begs many questions
that its co-authors proceed to
address. The Franciscan sisters
for whom the church was
built needed to be separated
from both priest and congregation
during the celebration
of Mass. Their segregated
space took the form of a loft
that extends quite deeply into
the nave. While unable to
see the altar, the nuns benefited
from more windowemitted
light than anywhere
else within the space of the
church, and they were surrounded
by a complex series
of frescoes depicting scenes
including Christ’s Passion
and events in the lives of the
saints, primarily of Agnes,
Catherine of Alexandria, and
Elizabeth of Thuringia-Hungary.
After an introduction by
co-editors Janis Elliott and
Cordelia Warr, Rosa Anna
Genovese outlines the history
of the construction and restoration
of the thirteenth-century
church. Samantha Kelly
and Matthew J. Clear follow
with fascinating contributions
about the significance
and personality of the patroness
of the convent, Maria of
Hungary. Tanja Michalsky
SEGREGATED SACRED SPACE:
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DONNA REGINA
Tomb of Mary of Hungary located within the church
complements these chapters
with a description of Maria’s
tomb within the church,
which further illustrates the
character of the queen. Caroline
Bruzelius places the
church within its architectural
context, arguing that
it cannot be seen simply as
an early example of Frenchstyle
Gothic ecclesiastical
architecture. Hisashi Yakou
demonstrates the influence of
Franciscan spiritual writings
upon the church’s architecture
and frescoes. Cathleen
A. Fleck and Adrian S. Hoch
describe and analyze, also in
light of Franciscan writings
being read at the time, the
frescoes that became for the
nuns the visual accompaniment
to the celebration of
Mass. Cordelia Warr studies
extant stories of Saint Elizabeth
of Thuringia-Hungary
to find sources of the series of
frescoes depicting events in
that saint’s life. Janis Elliott
concludes the study of the
frescoes with an analysis of
the significance of the depiction
of the Last Judgment for
the times in which the series
was executed. Julian Gardner
concludes the volume by
discussing the significance of
the church within Europe.
Accompanying all of
this are over one hundred
illustrations, in black-andwhite
and in color, many of
which were commissioned
specifically for the book. All
in all, the reader finds here
the means to make a sacred
space come alive at many
levels of significance.
32 Sacred Architecture 2006 Issue 11
W
Renée Köhler-Ryan is a doctoral
candidate at the Institute of Philosophy
at the Catholic University
of Louvain, Belgium. Her
dissertation is on the topic of
“Sacred Space”.