Katherine M. Boivin’s monograph Riemenschneider in Rothenburg is a fine contribution to the study of late Gothic architecture and urbanism. The author’s case study approach adds depth to a field where recent attention has focused on the remarkable breadth and diversity of late Gothic architecture.1 Boivin focuses on the parish church of St. Jakob, the principal church of Rothenburg ob der Tauber; the large-scale altarpieces associated with Tilman Riemenschneider that were displayed in the city’s churches and chapels; and the formation of civic identity through a programmatic effort on the part of Rothenburg’s city council to shape urban space through patronage and promotion of a distinctive visual culture across the late medieval city.The first chapter, “The City as Patron,” relates the construction of the Gothic choir (ca. 1303–50) and nave (1373–ca. 1422) of the parish church of St. Jakob to changing social-political circumstances in Rothenburg. Specifically, Boivin compares the design of the choir to architectural models adopted by the Teutonic Order, given that the priests of the order initially exercised control over the fabrica ecclesiae of St. Jakob. She draws on contracts to illustrate how the elected city council of Rothenburg increasingly acted as the central authority that governed church construction and administration throughout the city. According to the author, this shift is reflected particularly well in the design of the nave of St. Jakob, with its private chapels, its distinctive basilica plan and elevation, and its extraordinary use of flying buttresses, which deviates from older Teutonic models. As the city council tightened its control over the church’s fabric, it leveraged the church as a tool to help shape civic community and urban identity. The council’s consolidation of power over the church fabric, its duties overseeing and managing charitable donations to the church, and its assumption of the role of primary patron of the church are the fundamental points of the chapter, which undergirds the remainder of Boivin’s study. Indeed, as the author notes, this arrangement encouraged other burghers to support and visit the church, which, in turn, led to increased foot traffic and the city’s emphasis on promoting blood pilgrimage. The resulting donations and other fund-raising efforts prompted the city council to begin construction of the new west end of St. Jakob in 1453 with its Chapel of the Holy Blood.The second chapter, “A Pilgrimage Environment,” continues the chronology of St. Jakob. Boivin connects the construction of the west end and its new chapel to the phenomenon of blood pilgrimages, which were especially popular in late medieval Germany (47–48) and recorded in Rothenburg by a priest starting in 1442. Boivin’s analysis of that 1442 document reveals some of the motivations for the construction of the new west end of St. Jakob, elevated to bridge a major road, and its new Chapel of the Holy Blood, which was outfitted with the striking Holy Blood Altarpiece created by Tilman Riemenschneider and Erhart Harschner. The visual access to the blood relic, the elaborate carved retable that supported and framed its cross reliquary, the choreographed sequence of movement through its sophisticated architectural setting, and the visible theatrical rituals that unfolded near the relic constituted a dynamic and powerful spatial environment that highlighted the importance of pilgrimage in Rothenburg.The penultimate chapter shows how the structures of the church, cemetery, and charnel house of St. Michael functioned as an “urban complex” activated by ceremonials and rituals across space and time that contributed to collective civic memory in Rothenburg. Boivin suggests that three to five years after the completion of the Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, Riemenschneider carved the new Altarpiece of the Holy Cross to be installed in the upper chapel of Rothenburg’s charnel house, with an iconographic program continuing that of the Holy Blood Altarpiece and thus forming a pair with it (113), even if that was not the plan from the start. According to the author, stylistic and/or thematic similarities could link objects across space, time, and media, further developing and expanding the ritual topography of pilgrimage in late medieval Rothenburg.Chapter 4, “Remapping the City,” begins with an overview of additional altarpieces by Riemenschneider’s workshop. According to Boivin, these were commissioned for other chapels in Rothenburg, such as the Chapel of St. Wolfgang, integrated into the city’s north wall. She maintains that the series of altarpieces from Riemenschneider’s workshop on display in chapels across Rothenburg “must be considered as part of the city’s urban fabric, not as separate from it, because of [their] location within the walls of a church or chapel” (131). In this way, the altarpieces provided a flexible network of pilgrimage sites that could change over time to fulfill new needs. What mechanism activated the network of chapels and retables? The last section of the final chapter is the linchpin animating the network of sacred spaces of Rothenburg that the author has so carefully constructed over the course of the preceding pages. Drawing on a range of sources related to processional networks, parades on important feast days, the Corpus Christi celebration, and ceremonial imperial entries into Rothenburg, Boivin shows how ideas of pilgrimage and local identity extended across the wider cityscape through kinetic engagement and marvelous displays that projected a unique sense of place to the public (131).In her epilogue, “The Modern Medieval City,” Boivin reflects on issues of preservation, reconstruction, nostalgia, and medievalisms in relation to Rothenburg’s historic urban fabric and the ways that it satisfies the expectations of modern viewers and their imagination of the medieval city (179).Beyond contributing to the study of medieval Rothenburg and Riemenschneider, this book contributes to the history of medieval art, architecture, and urbanism in three broad ways. First, it focuses on the late Gothic era, an underrepresented period in English-language scholarship on medieval architecture. Moreover, the author does not consider these buildings or altarpieces as frozen in time, but rather surveys the long lives of these monuments and works of art, problematizing our notion of “completeness,” which—as she affirms—does not necessarily align with the notions of medieval viewers. Second, although Boivin’s research focuses on an important city, Rothenburg was not a major capital, industrial center, or cathedral city. Therefore, key elements of the design and construction of the parish church of St. Jakob and its striking furnishings relied on the expertise and craftsmanship of architects and artists imported from elsewhere (172). Boivin shows how medieval cities such as Rothenburg successfully constructed their civic identities by employing artworks and styles drawn from other major production centers. Finally, by putting wood carving, figural sculpture, stained glass, and other media into conversation with architecture, Riemenschneider in Rothenburg provides a compelling presentation of the urban experience and spatial relationships of the late medieval city. This is further enhanced by the striking production of the book, which features twenty-two full-page images to help readers see in detail the intricacies of late Gothic craftsmanship so eloquently described by the author.This monograph does generate questions about the production of sacred, liminal, and secular spaces in the late medieval city, the overlaps among these zones, and the interactions that occurred in between or across them. For example, while Boivin’s point that the city council controlled both the fabric of the parish church and city streets is well-taken, how did efforts to enlarge the parochial complex relate to concerns for the plan of the urban fabric more broadly? The construction of the towering west end of St. Jakob over a major urban thoroughfare would suggest that some negotiations and strategic planning unfolded before the council arrived at such a bold solution to the problem of intersecting ecclesiastical and secular spaces. As completed, the structure not only allowed for the circulation of both pedestrians and cart traffic between the city’s north gate, the nearby chapel of St. Wolfgang, the city’s Jewish neighborhood, and the market but also created a functional and symbolically charged architectural space for the new Chapel of the Holy Blood and its altarpiece. The author’s discussion of imperial entries further explores the links between sacred and secular spaces, the formation of civic identity, and political hierarchies. As Neil Murphy has shown for late medieval France, ceremonial entries and processions were carefully staged and highly choreographed events with significant implications for a city’s image, the quality of life of its populace, and the ongoing relationship between its municipal government and the monarch.2 Neither the entry of Emperor Frederick III in 1474 nor the entry of Emperor Maximilian I in 1513 into Rothenburg culminated with ceremonies at St. Jakob immediately upon the emperor’s arrival as planned by the city council. This unexpected turn of events would seemingly invite speculation about the reception of the city’s architectural spaces and ceremonial rituals in a wider sense, and the ways that the city’s inhabitants perceived Rothenburg’s relationship with the emperor. But these ruminations generated by Boivin’s captivating, multifaceted approach start to drift away from the core of the book, which instead offers a lucid synthetic account of the rich multimedia urban experience that unfolded in and around Rothenburg’s churches, chapels, and cemetery. Indeed, Riemenschneider in Rothenburg is an exemplary model that showcases the possibilities and rewards of undertaking research across a range of artistic media to reconstruct the experience of viewing not just a singular monument but an entire dynamic urban environment with a distinct visual program of architecture and works of art that clearly fostered a sense of civic space and communal identity.