The Illuminated Window: Stories across Time
Virginia Chieffo Raguin
Reaktion Books, £30, 272 pages
Writing in the first half of the 12th century, the monk and craftsman known as Theophilus Presbyter – in his three volume treatise on devotional art, De Diversis Artibus – lifted the lid on the ecclesiastical furnishings of his own day, their creation, function and use. His first and third books are devoted to painting and metalwork respectively, while the second concentrates on the use of stained glass, with its potential for what he calls works of “inestimable beauty”.
