Shrines: Images of Italian Worship [Hardcover]

Steven Rothfeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2005

Steven Rothfeld, the photographer for Frances Mayes’s bestseller Bringing Tuscany Home, has traveled the world collecting images of beauty, culture, and passion with his camera. He now focuses on an unusual and stirring art form in this stunning album of handcrafted shrines found throughout the Italian countryside.

Rothfeld turns his lens on a fascinating aspect of Italian culture, the age-old, popular art of building shrines in honor of the Virgin Mary and other saints. Created by average people as an expression of religious devotion, the shrines appear along ordinary roads in villages and cities, in the fields of farmers, and in the yards of simple cottages and homes. In Shrines, the full-color photographs of these ubiquitous, delicately crafted structures form a spiritual journey, bringing to life an ancient religious tradition that continues to thrive today. With a charming introduction and text by Frances Mayes, this visual tour of the surprising and graceful ways the divine touches and enriches everyday lives is perfect for admirers of sacred art, history buffs, those millions of Americans who travel to Italy, and everyone who dreams of going there.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

steven rothfeld is an internationally renowned photographer. His photographs appear in Frances Mayes’s annual Under the Tuscan Sun engagement calendar, and in many other books and calendars, including his own French Dreams, Irish Dreams, Italian Dreams, and Entrez. He lives in California’s Napa Valley. Please visit his Web site, www.stevenrothfeld.com.
frances mayes is the author of four books about Tuscany, including Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years; Bella Tuscany; In Tuscany; and Bringing Tuscany Home. Mayes is also the author of the novel Swan, six books of poetry, and, most recently, A Year in the World.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Mandragora (July 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8874610297
• ISBN-13: 978-8874610297
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,865,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remembering Mary in everyday life, February 13, 2010

By 

Susan Schleef "JoyFlower" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shrines: Images of Italian Worship (Hardcover)

With only a few pages of introductory text and a handful of short musings inserted here and there, this book is really about the pictures. And what wonderful pictures they are, too. They remind me first of the year I spent in Florence right after college. But they also remind me, in a deeper, non-verbal way, of some longing to remember the Divine Feminine -- and especially to remember Mary, the Blessed Mother -- in the simple everyday moments of my life. Looking through the photos in this book becomes for me like a meditation -- every time I pick up the book. The photographic quality is excellent and the variety of artistic style in the different shrines is wide-ranging. But they all share some common element of devotion that is at once soothing sweet and deeply compelling.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous, October 18, 2006

By 

Gerald "polemicallycorrect" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shrines: Images of Italian Worship (Hardcover)

A beautiful book, ideal for the cofeetable. It nicely documents private devotion in Italy. The photos are outstanding.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heart of Italy, August 21, 2010

By 

kbootl-gogreen "kbootl-gogreen" (Miami, FL) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Shrines: Images of Italian Worship (Hardcover)

This book really shows the heart of the Italian countryside. The passion that people had to create such beautiful shrines in unlikely places really shows the role that religion plays in the daily lives of the Italians.