The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church [Hardcover]

Margaret Visser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

Margaret Visser has visited many more churches than most people, but like the rest of us, she began to tire of the slew of facts and lack of meaningful information available from guidebooks. The desire to find answers to her own questions -- as a traveler, a believer, and an insatiable anthropologist of the everyday -- led her to undertake this unique and revelatory book.

More than any other kind of edifice, a church is intentionally meaningful in all its aspects, and Visser decided to find out what it was trying to express, in its nuances as well as in its grand gestures. She deliberately chose a relatively simple church just outside the walls of Rome, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, but she casts a wide net -- taking in history, theology, anthropology, and folklore, among other disciplines -- to illuminate its physical and spiritual architecture. As she guides us through the building, from apse to nave, catacombs to campanile, Visser explores the symbolism of lambs, the Christian fascination with virgins, the meanings of martyrdom, and the history of relics. At the same time, she moves back through the centuries to reveal Christianity in its earliest forms and purposes. The book ends at the church's beginning, with the grave of Agnes, a twelve-year-old girl who was murdered seventeen hundred years ago and whose remains lie buried beneath the altar. By then we have learned how to read any church building, how to interpret what it "does" and "says," whether we are of any faith or none.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Visser, described as "an anthropologist of everyday life," has written an enthralling, absorbing and exquisitely researched study of what she calls an "ordinary church." For her subject matter she chose a small but ancient Christian church dedicated to St. Agnes that sits half-buried outside the walls of Rome. Tired of endless tours through world churches in which guides provide lists of facts about dates and architects, Visser aims to bring one small church alive by exploring the stories, meanings and rituals built into each piece of the building. Using the physical layout of the church as the structure for her book, the author takes each staircase, window, fresco, catacomb and chapel as an entryway to fascinating details of mythology, history, early Christian theology, Roman culture and contemporary practice. Visser brings an obvious love and respect for her subject matter and demonstrates remarkable depth in her knowledge of the church's milieu from details on the origins of the halo in religious art, to the techniques of mosaic building, to the historical development of virgin-hero myths. In some ways the author is an archeologist as much as an anthropologist: she digs through layers of history to reveal the depth and breadth of one small building, and peels back layers of meaning in the words and images that adorn it. For the reader, this is rich and thoughtful armchair traveling of the best kind.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Spiritual traveler and author Visser (Rituals of Dinner) takes readers on an extended interior conversation as she explores Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, a smallish Roman church dedicated to the fourth-century martyr Saint Agnes. Sort of an anthropology of the commonplace, the work spans art and architecture, medieval theology, myth and symbolism, history, and Catholic doctrine, as the author travels from the threshold of Sant'Agnese through its sanctuary and below to the crypt and tomb of the saint. Not so much about the church itself, Visser's insights are intended to evoke internal discovery within each reader, "like finding one's way to the center of a labyrinth." The result is a sort of well-researched guidebook for "reading" symbolic places. Visser's thoughtful perspective gives license to those who find transcendence and majestyDsecular or religiousDin spiritual architecture. Recommended for general religion and art history collections.DSandra Collins, Duquesne Univ. Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; 1st Ed. edition (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865476187
• ISBN-13: 978-0865476189
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #190,019 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #38 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Medieval
  • #94 in Books > Arts & Photography > Religious

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful, yes -- but limited by a lousy format, August 14, 2001

By 

Jennifer M. Macleod "yiddishe supermama" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church (Hardcover)

Visser's spectacular language surpasses even her previous efforts, as she delves here into the majesty of faith and the intricate worship spaces we build. She sheds the usual anthropologist's garb of objectivity, admitting from the start that she is passionate about her subject, and the work is stronger for it.

However, I eventually got annoyed that there were no illustrations provided to help the reader along (it may be just the Canadian edition that suffers from this tragic flaw). As visual as her language is, this book proves the maxim that a picture is worth 1000 words. Those thousand words can be as beautiful as they like, but sometimes, dummies like me need a picture as well.

Reading about the spectacular details of St Agnes' church, I got more and more frustrated. Visser presents each column, each section of ceiling and floor, each mosaic tile, with such loving detail that I needed to examine them -- but lacking the plane fare to Rome, that's a nearly-impossible dream. Flipping from her descriptions of columns to the front cover hoping to catch a glimpse of them was eventually too much for me, and I returned this book to the library unfinished (this almost never happens).

A book of this quality deserves glossy, full-colour illustrations. Without the multimedia assist, you're going to find this book to be dry and tough going, even if you've enjoyed Visser's work in past. But still... I've recently discovered that Visser has her own website with many small images from the church ...

Perhaps I'll print out the pictures from the website and curl up with this book again at some point. Her language is so lovely, it may be worth another shot.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars geometry in architecture, history and faith, April 3, 2001

By 

karl b. (Fraser Valley, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church (Hardcover)

Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura Church stands just outside the old walled city of Rome, built, at its lowest levels, into the catacombs which surrounded the city. It is dedicated to a 4th Century Saint, a 12 year old slain for her refusal to marry the son of a Roman Prefect. Built in the 7th Century and continuously modified, it incorporates the layers of aesthetic, cultural, theological influences of the centuries, organically revealing Rome's tumultuous history. It is galvanized, though, by the reverence for this child martyr by its artisans. Visser's study is an exploration of the physical manifestation of the mysteries of faith. Like the church itself the book is more than the sum of its parts. The author searches for context and meaning, through the ecclesiastical history behind each of the church's major components-- nave, narthex, altar, tomb--. The author's descriptions convey the pageantry and the sometimes violent drama of the little church succinctly. Difficult to categorize, it is an in-depth look at how the church's schema reflected the attitudes of its congregants. Visser presents a spiritual anthropology measured in the church's marble, masonry and frescoes. She synthesizes the form and symbolism of its architecture. The book is filled with anecdotes of the inspiration Sant'Agnese has had on the faithful, vividly exposing its human dimensions. This intensively researched, rigorously constructed book is a fascinating read, be your interest historical, religious or artistic.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quintessential read!, June 24, 2001

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church (Hardcover)

The relatively simple Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura just outside the walls of Rome comes under the scrutiny of history, theology, anthropology & folklore to illuminate its physical & spiritual architecture.

Margaret Visser guides us through this organic aged basilica, from its apse to its nave, its catacombs to its campanile, she opens our eyes to its symbolism, its layers of religious expression, the Christian fascination with lambs & virgins, the meaning of martyrdom & the provenance of relics.

Effortlessly, this tranquil & earnest author moves us back through the ages to reveal, like the ancient stones she walks past, the erstwhile Roman attitudes toward our mortal remains & then through Christianity's infancy, in all its forms & purposes.

Part archaeology, part love story, part poetry & part tourist guide, The Geometry of Love is a quintessential read & I fell in love with columns all over again!

A superb example of writing about what you know - this author bequeaths us a unique & enfolding account of the why, where, who, when & what of a charming house of worship.