Composite Creatures Research Articles

Cumulative Part-Whole Relations as a Verbal and Visual Rhetorical Strategy: Song of Songs 7 and Composite Beings of the Southern Levant

In biblical studies, a growing interest in metaphors as the conceptual key to the ancient mind has arisen. However, in contrast with the popularity of metaphor, other tropes have received little attention. This article sheds light on another rhetorical feature: ‘cumulative part-whole relations,’ which construct a new whole by compounding disparate body parts, a textual and visual strategy deliberately used to cross boundaries of individual parts, to integrate the parts into a larger whole, and to demonstrate superiority and supernatural powers. Through examining visual and textual examples from the ancient Near East, including Song 7.1–6 and the composite creatures ( Mischwesen) from the Levant, this article reveals that the rhetorical mechanism of the cumulation of part-whole relations follows the logic that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, while that whole remains a single one no matter how many parts are compounded.

The Pyinsa Rupa Model of Diabetes Care: Inspiration from Myanmar

In this communication, we describe the Pyinsa Rupa, the famous mythical hybrid animal of Myanmar culture and history. This animal integrates various features of the lion, elephant, deer, ngagyin fish and hintha bird, into one composite creature. We utilize the unique characteristics of these animals: strength, sustainability, sociability, safety and swiftness, to craft a model that can serve as a beacon for diabetes care and diabetes care delivery.

Tubo-Sogdian Relations along the Silk Road: On an Enigmatic Gold Plaque from Dulan (Qinghai, China)

In 2018, some tombs that belonged to early Tibetan-related elites at the site of Dulan (Qinghai, China) were disturbed by looters’ activity. One of the gold objects confiscated by local police officers displays a curious composite creature that could be called a winged ichthyocentaurus or triton. This creature includes the torso of a dressed man with a beribboned crown holding a rhyton-like horn and a coiled fish tail. This article discusses the possible function and meaning of this type of composite creatures that appear also on some artifacts from Central Asian archaeological sites and Sino-Sogdian funerary monuments. The iconography of the hybrid creatures seems to be rooted in Greek art. Sogdians possibly transmitted it to the Tibetan Plateau along the so-called Silk Road in the 7th-8th cc. The horn held by the creature is reminiscent of one attribute of the ancient Chinese wind god “Feng Bo” (风伯, “Master of the Wind”) that has been depicted in the funerary milieu since the Han period (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) because of its association with immortality. This object could allow us to identify the iconography of the Sogdian wind deity Weshparkar (Avestan Vayu) who sometimes had a “wind blowing horn” like in the Dulan gold plaque. The study of this specific detail could help to shed light on the multicultural background of early Tibetan societies that definitely had contacts with Central Asia and China along the Silk Road trading network.

Iranian Religious Elements in Chinese Medieval Art: Remarks on “Zoroastrian Protective Spirits”

This article aims at discussing the possible origin and meaning of winged fantastic creatures, which appear quite often in the 6th century A.D. Sogdian funerary monuments in China and specifically on the Shi Jun 史君 one (580 A.D.). It cannot be ruled out that composite creatures like the one on the Shi Jun funerary monument originated from the Greek ketos and hippocampus that were introduced into Persia, Central Asia and northwestern India after the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great. The impact of Chinese cultural elements on this little investigated group of funerary monuments contributed to create a long forgotten unique and still enigmatic artistic production that scholars called “Sino-Sogdian”.

Kapuściński, Ryszard; with an introduction by Neal Ascherson; trans. Antonia Lloyd‐Jones. The other. 100 pp. London: Verso Books, 2018. £8.99 (paper)

Ryszard Kapuściński (1932-2007) was an internationally acclaimed Polish journalist and author, whose writings generated some controversy for their apparent blending of reportage and literature. This volume includes four lectures: the ‘Viennese lectures’ which were delivered in Vienna on 1-3 December 2004 at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen; ‘My Other’, which was given at the International Writers’ Symposium in Graz on 12 October 1990; ‘The Other in the global village’, which was delivered at the Father Józef Tischner Senior European School in Kraków on 30 September 2003; and ‘Encountering the Other as the challenge of the twenty-first century’, which was delivered on 1 October 2004, when Kapuściński was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. The lectures pursue interlinked trajectories of reflection on Europe and its relations with Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the question of the Other and the direction of social and cultural change. Over the course of the lectures, Kapuściński engages substantially with anthropology, particularly through the figure of Bronislaw Malinowski, and continental philosophy, through that of Emmanuel Lévinas. In this brief review, I will address these elements, before concluding with some short remarks about Kapuściński's representation of anthropology and Malinowski. For Kapuściński, Enlightenment humanism – expressed initially through literature and travel writing – opened up new spaces in which the Other emerged not as an object of conquest or conversion, but as a human being. According to Kapuściński, anthropology and the ‘philosophy of dialogue’ (p. 68) as practised by the likes of Lévinas, emerged from this Enlightenment space (p. 27). His summary of the development of anthropology from the debates of evolutionists, diffusionists, and functionalists into a discipline defined by ethnography, with Malinowski as ‘the creator of anthropological reportage’ (p. 32), segues neatly into a discussion of Lévinas, and his foregrounding of the ethics of the encounter with the Other, a move which Kapuściński sees as building upon the fieldwork pioneered by Malinowski. Kapuściński adds that fieldwork ‘is not only recommended for anthropologists, but is also a fundamental condition for the job of a reporter’ (p. 31), a point which highlights potential points of contact between the two professions. Kapuściński provides two perspectives on European history and experience: one, as we have seen, begins with the Enlightenment and moves on via the novel to anthropology and the philosophy of dialogue. The other focuses on social and cultural change, and the transition, as Kapuściński sees it, from mass to global society, a transition precipitated by decolonization and the end of the Cold War, as well as the advance and spread of new communication technologies. According to Kapuściński, mass society, particularly in its totalitarian forms, negated the individual: the subject was a member of a class, a race, or a nation. As such, our new multicultural-global society must embrace the spirit of dialogue found not just in the writings of Lévinas but also in those of the Polish Catholic theologian Józef Tischner, for whom the idea of dialogue was precisely conceived in opposition to mass and totalitarian social forms and in the recognition of the individual human being. Importantly, Kapuściński understands that a defining feature of the new global and multicultural society is its emergence from ‘various contradictory worlds, a composite creature of fluid, impermanent contours and features’ (p. 33), and that it is ‘hybrid and heterogeneous’ (p. 89). This new society will, according to Kapuściński, require something of the spirit of Malinowski, Lévinas, and Tischner if it is not to succumb to the many enmities and challenges that beset it from all sides. One reason to read this beautifully composed book is for its representation of anthropology and one of the discipline's most controversial figures, Malinowski. Kapuściński sees in anthropology, and fieldwork in particular, a deliberative methodology for dialogue and understanding the Other. Perhaps this is a rose-tinted view of the fieldwork encounter that does not adequately grasp its ongoing implication in asymmetries of power, race, and gender, but Kapuściński offers some useful points of departure for pursuing related questions about ethnography and literary craft, and for exploring anthropology and journalism as entangled professions. Finally, given the links made by Robert J. Thornton (‘Imagine yourself set down …’, Anthropology Today 1: 5, 1985) between Malinowski and one of Conrad's more disturbing creations, Kurtz, there is perhaps some irony in the fact that Kapuściński's final lecture closes with a quotation from Joseph Conrad (p. 92) that points to a common humanity binding together the dead, the living, and the unborn.

Iranian Composite Creatures between the Caucasus and Western China: The Case of the So-Called Simurgh

In the light of recent investigations by archaeologists and historians of art, several textile decorative patterns that have been uncritically attributed to Sasanian Persia in the past should be considered most likely Central Asian creations. Typical Iranian composite creatures, such as the so-called simurgh, had become very popular in Eurasia since the 7th century A.D. However, for some reason not completely clear, the so-called simurgh was not adopted by Central Asian Buddhists who, on the contrary, accepted other Iranian (possibly Sogdian) motifs, such as the wild boar head, the winged horse and birds holding a necklace in their beak within pearl roundel frames. The presence of such Iranian decorative motifs in monumental arts or objects of luxury arts (textiles, metalwork, glass, etc.) could be a valid instrument to propose better chronologies for excavated artifacts on a very wide area, which includes Persia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Tibetan Plateau as well.

How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths

How the Gospels Became History: Jesus and Mediterranean Myths

Locating the Lost Gupta Period Ramayana Reliefs from Katingara, Uttar Pradesh

This article collates a fascinating group of early fifth-century ce terracotta temple reliefs, some bearing short Brahmi inscriptions. The panels entered numerous museum and private collections in India and abroad from the 1960s and early 70s. Of the panels, which comprise animated narrative scenes, amorous couples, lesser-divinities and composite creatures, it is those depicting episodes of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana that this article is specifically concerned with. Although the images share a bold, idiosyncratic style, and a likeness in scale, material and finish, they have never been acknowledged as having a shared origin, with most being loosely described as hailing from Uttar Pradesh. The central aims of this article are to analyse the iconography of this remarkable collection of panels and to put forward an argument for their place of origin being a small archaeological site near the village of Katingara, located in the alluvial plains beside the Kali Nadi river (a tributary of the Ganges) in District Etah, Uttar Pradesh. Katingara will also be positioned within the context of recorded early archaeological sites in the region. Importantly, the panels constitute one of the earliest and most extensive collections of terracotta Ramayana images surviving from the Gupta period, and this is the first time since their illicit removal from Katingara that they have been 're-assembled'.

Tusk and transformation in southern African San rock art: an iconographic analysis of WAR2

ABSTRACTResearchers have made significant progress in understanding the symbolism of certain animal images in southern African San rock art. What is less well understood is the combination of specific animal body parts to create composite creatures. Identifying the species from which a particular body part is taken allows for further insight and nuance in the current interpretation of San iconography. This paper explores this possibility in relation to images from the WAR2 site in the Drakensberg Mountains of southeastern South Africa. Numerous images at the site are illustrated with tusks. While the paper argues that the tusks at this site are modelled on only one species, the behavioural contexts of tusks are similar for all animals that have them in southern Africa. Linking these contexts and the natural properties of tusks to San ethnography allows for the elucidation of the imagery at WAR2.

Matteo Compareti. « Ancient Iranian Decorative Textiles: New Evidence from Archaeological Investigations and Private Collections »

The object of this study consists of two textile fragments, which are in a private collection and have a main decoration of pearl roundels containing respectively one single or two composite creatures with a dog’s head, wings and a peacock’s tail. Both fabrics are radio-carbon dated, respectively to the 9th-10th century and to the beginning of the 8th - end of the 9th century. M. Comparetti elaborates on the iconography of the composite winged creature, which is often referred to as simurgh ...

The Questing Beast and the Noise of Adventure

Thomas Malory’s Questing Beast, a noisy monster whose significance goes unexplained, reveals how unstable language, or ‘noyse,’ both threatens and perpetuates chivalry. As scholars show, the hybrid Beast reflects fragmentation in Palomides, the kingdom, and Malory’s sources, but the creature also echoes language’s fragmentation, a challenge which knights must constantly negotiate.

Ohio Hopewell Depictions of Composite Creatures

Abstract Archaeological contextual analyses of four artifacts that depicted composite creatures and that were recovered from the Turner earthwork in southwestern Ohio are integrated here with a biological identification of the creatures’ component animals and a survey of historic Woodland–Plains Indian knowledge about their roles in Woodland–Plains life (previously reported in this journal). Together, the three studies reveal that the creatures were likely employed in a ritual drama concerned with the welfare of recently deceased persons on their journey to an afterlife through underwater–underground realm(s), where they encountered the creatures. The location of the journey to an afterlife through Below realm(s) differs from that of nearly all historic Woodland–Plains Indians, who knew the journey to take place on the earth-disk or to occur by ascension. Implications of the ritual drama at Turner for some recent interpretive trends in Woodland archaeology are explored, including an overemphasis on “world renewal” as the primary motivation behind Ohio Hopewell ceremonialism, the scarce attention given to eschatological matters, and the misleading notion that all agentive behaviors, including mortuary rites, are political.

Ohio Hopewell Depictions of Composite Creatures: Part II–Archaeological Context and a Journey to an Afterlife

Archaeological contextual analyses of four artifacts that depicted composite creatures and that were recovered from the Turner earthwork in southwestern Ohio are integrated here with a biological identification of the creatures' component animals and a survey of historic Woodland–Plains Indian knowledge about their roles in Woodland–Plains life (previously reported in this journal). Together, the three studies reveal that the creatures were likely employed in a ritual drama concerned with the welfare of recently deceased persons on their journey to an afterlife through underwater–underground realm(s), where they encountered the creatures. The location of the journey to an afterlife through Below realm(s) differs from that of nearly all historic Woodland–Plains Indians, who knew the journey to take place on the earth-disk or to occur by ascension. Implications of the ritual drama at Turner for some recent interpretive trends in Woodland archaeology are explored, including an overemphasis on “world renewal”...

Ohio Hopewell Depictions of Composite Creatures

AbstractHopewellian peoples in southwestern, south-central, and north-central Ohio sculpted, engraved, and cut out six depictions of creatures that combine the bodily elements of different ordinary animals. Detailed zoological identification of the component animals documents that all were associated with the underwater-underground realms of historic Woodland and Plains Indian cosmoses, in contrast to some later Mississippian and Historic period composite creatures with both sky and water-earth associations. However, strong continuities are found in the kinds of underwater-underground creatures known to historic Woodland-Plains and prehistoric Ohio Hopewellian Indians. A survey of historic Woodland and Plains knowledge about underwater-underground creatures sheds light on both their helpful and harmful roles and the very wide spectrum of domains of life they affected, in contrast to some current Woodland ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and archaeological lines of interpretation that caricature the creature...

The grotesque as it appears in Western art history and in Ian Marley’s creative creatures

This article presents a theoretical exploration and reading of the notion of the grotesque in Western history of art to serve as background to the reading of the original creatures in the “Tracking creative creatures” project.1 These creatures were drawn by Marley, based on imaginary creatures narrated by his five year-old son, Joshua. The focus in this article is on the occurrence of the grotesque in paintings and drawings. Three techniques associated with the grotesque are identified: the presence of imagined fusion figures or composite creatures, the violation and exaggeration of standing categories or concepts, and the juxtaposition of the ridiculous and the horrible. The use of these techniques is illustrated in selected artworks and Marley’s creatures are then read from the angle of these strategies.

Possible worlds: a reading of three artworks from the <i>Creative creatures</i> exhibition

The basic concern of this article is to offer an interpretation of artworks by a selected group of artists who contributed to the “Creative creatures” project. The original creatures created by the artist, Ian Marley, based on narration by his son, Joshua, seem at first glance to suggest an underlying theme of fantasy. However, certain interpretative artworks by artists such as those by Diane Victor, Flip Hattingh and Angus Taylor seem to display a shift from the originally perceived element of fantasy. The artworks rather each represents their own fictional worlds, far removed from the original composite creatures created by Marley who each seems to function in its own fictional world. The superimposition of the incongruous worlds suggests a measure of tension that hinges on progressive notions of archaeology, history and possible worlds.

The apophasis of limits: genius, madness, and learning disability

The rock struck Aeneas on the groin where the hip turns in the joint that is called the ‘cup‐bone’. The stone crushed this joint, and broke both the sinews. (Homer/Murray, c.800 BCE/1999, V, 303ff. verse 32) For health and sickness, goodness or badness, the proportion or disproportion between soul and body themselves is more important than any other. … Just as a body that is out of proportion because the legs or some other members are too big, is not only ugly, but in the working of one part with another brings countless troubles upon itself with much fatigue and frequent falls due to awkward convulsive movement, so is it, we must suppose, with the composite creature we call an animal. (Plato/Cornford, c.360 BCE/1937, 87D–E, p. 350) The maiden answered him, ‘Good sir, he is a king, you may be sure, but in a battle he was lamed, So badly wounded, he was maimed, He cannot move and must have aid, Hurt by a wound a javelin made between his thighs, the king is still in such pain, it's impossible for him to ride, but when he wishes to spend some pleasant hours, he fishes, placed in a small boat at his sign, he fishes with a hook and line, so he is called the Fisher King, since fishing is the only thing to which the hurt king can resort for recreation and for sport. (De Troyes/Cline, c.1190/1985, p. 97) He accepted the deformity which had made life so hard for him; he knew that it had warped his character, but now he saw also that by reason of it he had acquired that power of introspection which had given him so much delight. Without it he would never have had his keen appreciation of beauty, his passion for art and literature, and his interest in the varied spectacle of life. … Then he saw that the normal was the rarest thing in the world. Everyone had some defect, of body or of mind …. (Maugham, 1915, p. 762)

The centaur's smile: the human animal in early Greek art

Human animals - such as centaurs, satyrs, sphinxes, sirens and gorgons - as well as other composite creatures like Pan, Triton and the Minotaur are extremely common in Greek myth, literature, theatre and the visual arts. Understanding the phenomenon of combining human and animal elements into composite creatures is central to our knowledge of the Greek imagination. This is an investigation of the representations of these human animals in early Greek art (circa 850-450 BC). The Centaur's Smile discusses the oriental antecedents of these fantastic creatures, examining the influence of Egyptian and Near Eastern models on the formation of Greek monsters in the early Archaic period. Essays also explore the nature and origin of horse-men (centaurs and satyrs) and the ways in which they are represented in early Greek art. Furthermore, the book surveys the broader range of Greek composite creatures and discusses their evolving forms and changing roles and meaning. Over 100 objects - all reproduced in colour - are described and analysed in detail. Among the featured works are: reliefs and statuettes in stone, bronze and terracotta; jewellery and metalwork in gold, silver and electrum; engraved sealstones in rock crystal, jasper and cornelian; and painted ceramic vases from Athens, Corinth, Rhodes, Miletus, Cyprus and Etruria.

The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe (review)

252 Reviews Parergon 20.1 (2003) do enough to make sense of the monstrous, Rosenfield has it overwrite all other concerns. Not all of the essays share these preoccupations with abnormality and otherness. Isabel Davis’s ‘Consuming the Body of the Working Man in the Later Middle Ages’ seeks to redress a scholarly preference for female rather than male bodies. Davis looks closely at the un-monstrous concept of ‘werk’. She addresses the vital link between labouring male bodies and food production, providing an important counter to the view, popularised by Caroline Walker Bynum, that the capacity for breast-feeding makes women responsible for the provision of food more generally in medieval society. Only one essay questions the assumptions upon which the collection is based. Nicholas Watson critiques a painting accompanied by explanatory verses, which hangs in an English public school. It depicts a ‘monstrous’ composite creature, representing an ideal, or ‘trusty’ servant, the destiny to which its audience of schoolboys is supposed to aspire. But as a servile form of masculinity, this creature does not represent a threat to order; rather, it illustrates the complexities of embodying normative standards, where ‘virtue is maintained under the emblem not of innocence but of strain’ (p.18). Whereas most of the contributors to this collection treat the monstrous in opposition to the normative (hence, perhaps, the lack of interest in class, which is a relatively ‘internal’ classification), Watson’s analysis challenges this division. His essay understands normativity itself as a rich and dynamic process, just as worthy of careful consideration as the images of deviancy that define the fringes of conventionality. It is regrettable that such an open approach to the workings of monstrosity is not more widely found in this collection. Melissa Raine Department of English University of Melbourne McClanan, Anne L. and Karen Rosoff Encarnacion, eds, The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe, New York, Palgrave, 2002; cloth; pp. xiv, 285; 34 b/w illustrations; RRP US$59.95; ISBN 0312240015. The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe is a diverse set of eleven essays examining the material culture of gender in milieux ranging from second-century Rome to early modern Germany. The Reviews 253 Parergon 20.1 (2003) anthology is unified by the focus on the material remains of women’s experiences of sex, marriage, childbirth and childrearing. Such an anthology is certainly overdue, as studies of sexuality have tended to focus on queer experiences. The enormous influence of Michel Foucault and John Boswell in the writing of the history of sexuality has meant that queer – usually homosexual – relationships have been studied while the history of sexuality in marriage has not been so much considered (The History of Sexuality, 1976; Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, 1980). This anthology focuses on women’s experiences of sexuality, particularly experiences of marriage and procreation, areas certainly overdue for scholarly interpretation. Additionally, this anthology provides a welcome contribution to the history of sexuality as it moves away from the usual reliance on textual sources. As McClanan and Encarnacion write in the introduction (p. 2): [T]his anthology began as a project in women’s history intended to use materialcultureasameansofreexaminingthepossibilitiesofgainingaccess tothelivesandexperiencesofmedievalandearlymodernwomen.Whilethe processes and events of sex, procreation, and marriage have been important factors in shaping the possibilities of women’s lives at all levels of society, theirhistoricalanalysishasbeenlargelydeliminatedbythenarrowconditions of textual production and literacy in the premodern period, as well as modes of historical investigation that privilege texts as historical evidence. In focusing on the analysis of material culture, we took as our starting point the belief that as the material grounds of lived experience, objects provide an avenueofhistoricalaccessextendingbeyondthereachesoftextualevidence. As a work examining the material evidence of women’s sexuality, The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe is an exciting and interesting addition to the historiography of premodern sexuality. The anthology arose from debates at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women and the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, and was intended as an inter-disciplinary collection. The coverage includes art history, archaeology, literary studies, and medical history. As with all anthologies, the work is somewhat mixed in quality. Some of the...

Viterbo: Profile of a Thirteenth-Century Papal Palace by Gary M. Radke

738book reviews refers to the series of initials (Bks. XI, XIII, XV XVI, XXI, XXVII, XXXTV) which are often regarded as reflections of the artist's curiosity about the world around him. For Rudolph, however, the naturalism of these letters, real as it is, harbors an allegorical dimension which is for him their essential point, lending emphasis to the value attached by the Cistercians on manual labor and the avoidance of the temptations of the secular world. A second group of initials (Frontispiece , and Bks. X, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXIII, XXVIII, XXLX, XXX, XXXI, and XXXIII) refers, according to the author, to the theme of violence, a term not altogether well chosen by him to designate spiritual struggle. His method is to concede the lack of any literal basis in the text for the often fanciful imagery of these initials , and appeal for an explanatory premise to a generalized "sense" embedded in Gregory's commentary. Thus, the lean and long-frocked figure prying open the jaws of a submissive dragon which outlines the letter Q at the beginning of Book XX is said to have been inspired by a passage in this section of the text which declares that "the elect, while in this world, never become overconfident of their spiritual security; instead they are always on watch against the plots of the enemy" (p. 45). The weird collection of wild animals, composite creatures, including a bearded and balding figure riding on the back of a naked man, is held to evoke "in a generic way" Gregory's depiction in the same book of the soul's spiritual travails through such expressions as "a storm of temptation," or "a turbulent sea darkened by the confusion of its own restlessness," and similar phrases (p. 58). As these examples indicate, Rudolph's interpretations are ingenious , often suggestive, and many readers may well find them convincing. The author would perhaps admit their speculative nature,which the final chapter of the book justifies by analogy with the capacious allegorical resourcefulness fostered by the meditative and exegetical protocols of monastic reading. For this reviewer, they do understate the playful dimension in these exegetical procedures and the strong intimations of satire that cling in palpable fashion to these striking images. Walter Cahn Yale University Viterbo:Profile ofa Thirteenth-Century Papal Palace. By Gary M. Radke. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1996. Pp. xx, 354. $85.00.) This volume is a study of the papal palace ofViterbo as an architectural artifact as well as in the context of the history and political ambitions of the city. The first half of the volume sets out the relationship between the commune of Viterbo and the papacy (Chapter 1), the various phases of construction of the papal palace (Chapter 2), the types and the allocations of space within the palace from the most exalted official reception halls to the latrines (Chapter 3), and, finally, the palace and its decoration in the context of local building traditions , papal architecture, and the influence of imported, "up-to-date" French book reviews739 architectural models. The second half of the book is a detailed archaeologicalarchitectural analysis of the monument section by section, with reconstructing drawings and a careful analysis of alterations and restorations. The volume concludes with an admirable series of plans, elevations, and sections, coded to represent the different areas and phases of construction. There are notes and an index, but no bibliography. As the title suggests, the volume is based on the tradition of architectural analysis established by one of the great masters in the field, Richard Krautheimer, whose volume, Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308 (Princeton, 1980), hovers in the background as the acknowledged model for this study. The meticulous analysis of the structure, the careful description of the phases of construction and their dating, and the contextualization of all this in the setting of the (presumptuous) attempts on the part of the Viterbo city fathers, especially the Gatti family, to co-opt the papacy into permanent residence at Viterbo, reflect the splendid model of architectural analysis established by Krautheimer and his many students, among them Radke's own former advisor, Marvin Trachtenberg . The volume is in the tradition of...