The Rites of Durham by William Claxton

Abstract

ces can be conceived of as ‘tools of urban planning’ (p. 130). In her deft consideration of the Riemenschneider altarpieces in context — of their churches and of the city — Boivin demonstrates that the retables together formulated a means of navigating and understanding devotion in the city. United by style, iconography and composition, the altarpieces offered a cohesive programme specific to Rothenburg, altering the urban landscape and presenting its civic identity. To conclude her study, Boivin’s epilogue looks at present-day Rothenburg, today one of the largest tourist destinations in Germany. While the cityscape has experienced some alteration over the centuries, especially in the 19th century, it remains largely medieval. For visitors today, the city presents layered temporalities of medieval and modern. This volume represents an important contribution to the study of urban planning and medieval devotional sites. Boivin revises longstanding scholarship on Riemenschneider by situating his altarpieces in their settings and demonstrating how architectural and urban context is essential to their analysis. More broadly, the book presents how patronage is an accretive process, drawing attention to the way new commissions inherently engaged with pre-existing environments. While this book offers much to learn about Rothenburg and about Riemenschneider, it also significantly offers a framework for analysing urban artistic programming. Boivin contributes to the growing body of scholarship on the refinement of ritual and urban spaces over time, as part of an ongoing process of identity formation. Beautifully illustrated, the book is eloquently and engagingly written, drawing the reader across time and through space. Riemenschneider in Rothenburg impressively brings together analysis of architecture, sculpture and cityscape, as well as other media, to demonstrate the inseparability of church, city and community. It is the kind of multimedia reading that still remains rare in the field of art history, although Boivin’s study manifests the necessity of such an approach. Overall, this book represents essential reading not only on one of the most important German carvers of the later Middle Ages, but also on the study of religious space, urban placemaking and civic development.