Late medieval Italy witnessed the widespread rise of the cult of the Virgin, as reflected in the profusion of paintings, sculptures, and fresco cycles created in her honor during this period. The cathedral of papal Orvieto especially reflects the strong Marian tradition through its fresco and stained-glass window narrative cycles. In this study, Sara James explores its complex narrative programs. She demonstrates how a papal plan for the cathedral to emulate the basilica of S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, together with Dominican and Franciscan texts, determined the choices and arrangement of scenes. The result is a tour de force of Marian devotion, superior artistry, and compelling story-telling. James also shows how the narratives promoted agendas tied to the city's history and principal religious feasts. Not only are these works more interesting, sophisticated, and theologically rich than previously realized, but, as James argues, each represents the acme in their respective media of their generation in central Italy.

‘The fact that Vasari attributed the beautiful but still under appreciated trecento frescoes in the Orvieto Cathedral by Ugolino di Prete Ilario to the great Ambrogio Lorenzetti is testimony to their extraordinary aesthetic virtues and their importance to the artistic legacy of Siena, which Sara James’s book brings out so well. The synthetic character of her work not only gives the frescoes a context by incorporating the magnificent stained-glass window, but it gives a nice balance between theology and aesthetics, liturgy and art. Sara James makes a huge contribution to the history of art in her work on Orvieto.’

Paul Barolsky - University of Virginia

‘Sara Nair James opens up for us a pair of major but previously rarely studied Marian cycles, distinguished by their iconographic richness and originality. James’s detailed reading of the great stained-glass window and the numerous frescoes of the Cappella Maggiore of Orvieto Cathedral is placed within the devotional context of fourteenth-century Orvieto and set against the background of previous Virgin cycles. Meticulous study of these two unprecedented programmes reveals their complexity and significance and shines important new light on the cult of the Virgin in the art of medieval Italy.’

Joanna Cannon - Courtauld Institute of Art

‘This richly illustrated text offers new insight into the complex intellectual, artistic, and religious environment surrounding the cult of the Virgin at Orvieto Cathedral during the fourteenth century. Based on exacting research, we are offered an invaluable comparative perspective on Orvieto’s cult of the Virgin, as Sara James situates the imagery against a backdrop of key Marian representational practices across Tuscany, Rome and Umbria in the later Middle Ages. James offers an important re-evaluation of the contributions of master painter Ugolino di Prete Ilario and his workshop, and the master glazier, Giovanni di Bonino of Assisi, who created the great Marian window in the main apse. One of the most exciting features of the book is her analysis of new thinking about Mary’s husband, St. Joseph, and the impact of the ideas of St. Bridget of Sweden on the late medieval imagination.’

Catherine Harding - University of Victoria, Canada

‘In this comprehensive study, Dr. Sara James presents a nuanced reading of the iconography of the 14th-century frescoes and stained-glass windows in the high chapel at Orvieto Cathedral. Dr. James takes painter Ugolino di Prete Ilario and stained-glass artist Giovanni Bonino out of the margins of 14th-century art history and argues that both artists created innovative, engaging narratives that incorporated elements of Marian devotion specific to Orvieto. While considering the important visual and architectural precedents that inspired the Cathedral’s construction and decoration, Dr. James also paints a vivid picture of the political, artistic, and theological debates within the city of Orvieto that shaped Ugolino’s and Giovanni Bonino’s image programs.’

Nancy M. Thompson - St. Olaf’s College