In Prato: Architecture, Piety, and Political Identity in a Tuscan City-State, Alick McLean presents the disclaimer that medieval Prato should be considered ordinary, at least when compared to its famous neighbors, Florence or Siena. However, by the end of this fascinating, finely researched book, the reader is left feeling that the architectural and urban design (and, ultimately, visual culture) of this Tuscan commune is, simply, extra-ordinary. McLean’s book is a diachronic exploration of the city and architecture of Prato in relation to social, political, and cultural developments, largely from its origin in the Carolingian era until its demise in the mid-Trecento. The primary historical issue running through this temporal span is the relationship between church, empire, and the burgeoning lay government, the latter originating at the beginning of the twelfth century. Notwithstanding its historical veracity, the innovation of the book largely lies in its animation of the city’s architectural and urban spaces by showing how ritual and spectacle, both civic and religious, were enacted within it. In addition, McLean demonstrates how architecture and urban space can function “animistically,” that is, they can embed the “active presences” of a variety of cultures, traditions, and ideas (164). In part this is revealed by relating the architectural and urban phenomena of Prato to those in comparable cities of Tuscany, as well as beyond. His interdisciplinary approach is rounded out nicely with a careful examination of the impact of prevailing economic conditions.

In chapters 1 and 2, McLean lays the backdrop for the centuries ahead. The city, first mentioned in 880, was settled on a plain through which the Bisenzio River meanders, following its descent from the Apennine Mountains, until it joins the Arno River. Before the eleventh century ecclesiastical power was centered at the parish church of Santo Stefano (first mentioned in 994), which was under the immediate control of the bishopric of Pistoia. It acted as a canonry, fulfilling its lay ministry, and was placed under the control of a proposito, or provost. McLean does a fine job examining the nature of these canons, who, in consort with the local nobility, subverted the inalienability of church goods by passing them on to their offspring, as typified church/state relations of the time.

Chapter 3 deals with eleventh-century Prato, when the city first received its name, which was derived from the word pratum, “a grazing area for horses, or . . . a marshaling ground for cavalry and troops” (26). In addition, the city became independent from the bishopric of Pistoia. McLean provides a carefully constructed archeological analysis of Santo Stefano, which was built originally in the second half of the eleventh century and consisted of a nave and side aisles, each terminating in an apse. A critical moment in Prato’s history occurred in the first half of the twelfth century when its merchant class, as elsewhere in the cities of Tuscany, freed itself from baronial control and established a commune that exercised a kind of ”quasi-national sovereignty” (5). Chapter 4 focuses on the rebuilding of Santo Stefano in the second half of the twelfth century. Here the author describes his methodology: visual and documentary archeology to revivify the “building, its urban context, and its period reception” (46). In some ways McLean follows a traditional modernist methodology, attributing components of the design to different individuals and ascribing rhythmic marks to the distribution of bays, as in his discussion of the south façade. But what makes this analysis particularly compelling is his numerological interpretation, in the tradition of Richard Krautheimer (“Introduction to an Iconography of Medieval Architecture,” idem, Studies in Early Christian, Medieval, and Renaissance Art, New York: New York University Press, 1969). Facing the communal piazza, this façade likely was articulated by twelve pilasters, echoing the number of columns of the cloister that abutted the north aisle. For the canons this would have recalled the portico of the Temple of Solomon, where the apostles took their oaths to live a life in common. A key component of the late eleventh-century Gregorian Reform was its attempt to instill in the clergy such a lifestyle. For McLean this façade became an interface between the reformist canons and their lay public, upon whom they were attempting to instill similar ideas of apostolic purity. McLean also demonstrates the economic intention behind the design; it was an attempt by the propositura, or provost’s church, to “expand its market share of piety” (72).

In chapters 5 and 6, McLean moves to the thirteenth century, focusing more on the secular spaces of Prato’s urban fabric, specifically the communal piazza, with its senate palace and communal tower. Again the political backdrop is key to McLean’s analysis, specifically, the alliance between the consular government and the propositura, vis-à-vis the emperor, whose power was manifested in his palace located just outside Prato’s walls. Communal authority came to be asserted within the ecclesiastical sphere, specifically at Santo Stefano itself. During Emperor Frederick II’s reign the nobility of Italy’s communes was becoming divided into the Guelph and Ghibelline parties; Prato was no exception to this phenomenon.

A blip in the political stasis of church and empire occurred in the second half of the thirteenth century, namely, the rise of the reformist mendicant orders, the Franciscans, Augustinians, and Dominicans, the focus of chapter 7. The advocacy of these friars for poverty and apostolic purity reiterates a continuing theme in Prato’s cultural history, as McLean points out. A shift of architectural and urban design occurred, as the mendicants established a ring of open devotional spaces around the city—sites for urban spectacle. Before the mendicant churches were even built, the friars held their liturgical performances within the public piazzas themselves. Moreover, penitential processions spilled into the city, where the citizens now became direct participants in sacred performance. Fascinating as well is McLean’s account of how the mendicant orders, in their desire for social control, introduced into the city not only the inquisition but also the idea of purgatory (defined by McLean as the absence of heaven (138)), which allowed them to gain control over the salvation of the citizenry. Another riveting explication contained in this chapter is his analysis of the church of San Domenico, whose northern exterior is articulated at ground level by an arcade housing tombs, known as avelli, similar to Santa Maria Novella in Florence.

Control by the mendicant orders was rather short-lived, as McLean reveals in chapters 8 and 9. Communal power became re-centralized in the creation of a new communal piazza in 1284, and the propositura was revitalized. The instrument for this revival was the invention in the 1270s of the Sacred Belt of the Virgin, a relic purportedly handed by the Virgin to St. Thomas upon her assumption into heaven and then brought to Prato in 1141. With the rise in pilgrimage traffic, Santo Stefano could now successfully compete with the mendicant orders for control of the urban religious spaces. The shift by McLean to visual culture in this chapter is an interdisciplinary tour de force. The yearly reenactment of the handoff on the feast of the Virgin’s Assumption was the means by which Mary, that is, Santo Stefano, could provide entrance to Jerusalem to Thomas, the public. The fabrication of this relic came as a last gasp by the commune of Prato to maintain its autonomy in the face of growing external threats, particularly Florence, to whom, in the end, it capitulated in 1351.

McLean’s book is important in bridging more traditional approaches in architectural history, particular the focus on architect, form, and tectonics, with the new historicism: architecture as rhetoric (106) and as memory (149), post-colonial theory (123), and literary-critical terminology, like metonymy (164). He connects the last with “animism,” which he defines essentially as the magical (though one feels the spiritual would suffice), an issue which he posits has not been adequately addressed in twentieth-century scholarship. A more thorough application of these theories to his text would have strengthened it; at times they make a rather haphazard appearance, and largely toward the end of the book. In addition, he frequently emphasizes how architecture and urban space were given agency themselves, when in fact those who commissioned, designed, and manipulated them controlled the cultural fabric of Prato. It should also be noted that in chapter 7 McLean mentions that the propositura had previously resisted San Giusto and the Vallombrosans at Sant’Iacopo, although any previous reference in the book to this cannot be found (124). But these quibbles are largely minor. Overall, McLean approaches his material with a novelty that undoubtedly will have a profound and positive impact on architectural history and urban design in general. Methodologicaly derived to some extent from Marvin Trachtenberg’s Dominion of the Eye: Urbanism, Art, and Power in Early Modern Florence (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997), McLean’s book should be viewed as part of a trend in recent scholarship, as witness Caroline Goodson et al., eds., Cities, Texts, and Social Networks, 400–1500: Experiences and Perceptions of Medieval Urban Space (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009); Robert A. Maxwell, The Art of Medieval Urbanism: Parthenay in Romanesque Aquitaine (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2007); and Franklin Toker, On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture and Urbanism in the Cathedral and the Streets of Medieval Florence (London: Harvey Miller, 2009). Not to be overlooked is the outstanding quality of McLean’s pictures, maps, diagrams, and ground plans, which are nicely dovetailed into the text. A very useful glossary and timeline with comparative sites, mostly Tuscan, is also included.