Zahl, Mass und Massbeziehung in Leon Battista Albertis Kirche San Sebastiano zu Mantua (review)
gree of control women exercised in commissions and in influencing iconography. While acknowledging the role of male advisers as intermediaries in the commissioning and production of conventual art, she rightly asserts the need to qualify the notion of female dependence on male advisers. She calls attention to documentary evidence indicating that women made decisions concerning content and iconography and sometimes instigated commissions. Further, she observes how frameworks of association between female religious communities, artists, and family members functioned within the mechanisms of patronage. In pursuing her examination of the links between art and piety in the female religious communities of Renaissance Italy, Thomas draws upon her extensive knowledge of archival sources and artistic practice. Although the lack of documents and the destruction or alteration of conventual spaces pose difficulties, she nevertheless has skillfully amassed considerable archival and physical evidence to support her study. Her observations on the use of various types of documents and the cautions that must be exercised in their interpretation are instructive for all archival researchers. She asks probing questions about images, space, and function as well as considers how objects have been relocated and spaces transformed. In spite of obstacles of fragmentary evidence, she endeavors to make her observations as specific as possible. In her analysis of individual works of art, Thomas investigates issues of artistic style and iconography and does not sacrifice detailed analyses of possible interpretations in favor of a more overriding theoretical construct. While these discussions will be of interest to specialists, they tend to create a very densely written and detailed text. Clearly aware of this, Thomas guides the reader to her main themes in chapter introductions and summaries. Since conclusive evidence is often lacking and numerous works no longer can be securely identified with their original setting, many of Thomas’s proposals remain hypothetical, as she recognizes, offering her study as a beginning for further research that will be revised over time. Nonetheless she presents a fascinating discussion of the interrelations between art, space, ritual, and female religious in Renaissance Italy, demonstrating the key role of visual images in conventual environments and women’s active engagement with them. MARILYN DUNN Loyola University Chicago