Fernando Lanzi

In my job I get to visit a lot of churches and finding a handy reference to help identify saints in religious artwork has been difficult. Fortunately "Saints and Their Symbols" has everything I've ever wanted in such a book.

The text has three sections: first, a chronological listing of major saints with biographical information, relevant pictures, and explanations of the major symbols associated with each saint. The next section is a "visual dictionary" -- simple line drawings that are easy to scan so that you can identify saints without knowing their names. The final section is a very complete text index of the saints and their symbols.

The book is lavishly illustrated and includes many color and black-and-white images of the saints; it's as much an art book as it is a reference work, and just flipping through the pages is a pleasure.

The only glaring, if understandable, omission is the absence of Mary, Mother of God in the book. In the introduction the authors indicate that her symbols are still understood well enough that her inclusion isn't necessary. I suspect the significant increase in pages required to include her and her various titles and apparitions would have made the book cost-prohibitive. In any event buyers should be aware that Mary is not covered in the text.

That having been said, this is still an invaluable resource that will have pride of place on my shelves for many years.… (meer)