In the fifteenth century, a fledgling community of religious women in Rome commissioned an impressive array of artwork for their newly acquired living quarters known as the Tor de'Specchi. The naturalistic assortment of earthly, divine, and demonic figures that populated the walls of the monastery were reflections of the sensual and corporeal nature of then contemporary spirituality. Suzanne M. Scanlan coordinates her reading of this extraordinary imagery through the multivalent lens of late medieval optical theory, the theology of visions, and then contemporary Italian texts to guide her readers through the meditative and mnemonic practices of these religious women.

Her meticulous analysis begins with an introductory biography of the Roman noblewoman Francesca Bussa de'Panziani (1385–1440) who became known as Santa Francesca Romana, her establishment of a community of religious women, and the development of an iconography and hagiography that led to canonization. The following four chapters detail the visual vocabulary of this saintly woman and her religious community while an epilogue details her canonization.

Scanlan's introduction, “Demonic and Divine Bodies,” prefigures the unusual character of the two major fresco cycles within the Tor de'Specchi. The Oblates of Santa Francesca Romana were a dedicated group of women religious who included widowed and unmarried noblewoman of sufficient financial means to acquire property in Rome, and to furnish and decorate it according to the highest standards. The reader should note that the term oblates refers to individuals, either men or women, who have dedicated themselves to the religious life but have not taken full monastic vows.

Francesca Romana proved to be a strong religious leader as well as a pious model of female sanctity. Identified by her acts of charity as Rome's mystical missionary and miraculous healer, her community was defined by women's patronage, devotional practices, and pious work, especially through their care for the poor.

Scanlan's primary research of this religious community and the cycles of frescoes they commissioned from Antoniazzo Romana in 1468 and an unidentified artist in 1485 provided principal documentation for women's spirituality and female agency in fifteenth-century Rome. Clearly the faith life of these women and of their community was nourished by meditations on the female imagery in these two fresco cycles. The initial cycle of twenty-six colorful and extensively detailed images narrate visually the mystical visions and works identified with Francesca Romana. Functioning as a visual biography, these images promoted a visual pedagogy of her activities and were found throughout the entryway and oratory of the Tor de'Specchi.

The second fresco cycle is the more extraordinary created in terra verde (green monochrome technique) and located in the refectory. However rather than the traditional iconography of the Last Supper, these ten panels displayed alarming images of the founder's violent encounters with the Devil. These frescoes proved fundamental for the evolution of Francesca's hagiography and her canonization.

The theme of chapter 1, “Sanctity on the Threshold: Liminality and Corporeality at Tor de'Specchi,” situates the historical and cultural milieu of Rome during the lifetime and immediately after the death of Francesca. Pope Nicholas V (r.1447–1452) sought to reestablish Rome as the New Jerusalem by emphasizing the theology of caritas (charity). Given Francesca's renowned works of caritas, her image and her actions were incorporated into the frescoes Fra Angelico created for the Cappella Niccolina in the Vatican. Chapter 2 provides an in-depth discussion around the theme of “Painted Visions and Devotional Practices at Tor de'Specchi.” Francesca's charitable works and mystical visions are framed within her community's practices of daily prayers and focused meditations. Scanlan emphasizes the saint's mystical communications with the Madonna and relates Francesca's emerging iconography with corresponding Marian imagery including the motif of the Madonna delle Misericordia.

In many ways, chapter 3 is the center of this book highlighting “Dining and Discipline at Tor de'Specchi: The Refectory as Ritual Space.” In distinction to the traditional refectory imagery of the Last Supper and the crucifixion of Christ, Scanlan proposes that this 1485 fresco cycle is a female response to the Last Supper—a reflection on food as temptation and the source of sin (think simply of Adam and Eve and that apple). This refectory and its imagery became a ritual space emphasizing a daily ascetic regime of regular fasting and rigorous self-discipline as dictated by the Madonna directly to Francesca.

The expanding fifteenth-century iconography of the corporeality of evil is examined in chapter 4. Scanlan's discussion of the bodily forms, especially of male nudity contrasted to clothed female modesty, highlights “The Devil in the Refectory: Bodies Imagined at Tor de'Specchi.” Woman's eternal struggle between her virtue and sexual peril is traced through historical and mythological examples and distinguishes Francesca and her community as chaste widows and ideal virgins.

As the first woman to be canonized since Catherine of Siena in 1461, Santa Francesca was the third individual sanctified after Trent. In her epilogue “Imagining the Canonization of Francesca Romana,” Scanlan proposes that the transformations in the visual narrative of her earliest biography into the example of Tridentine female sanctity can be credited to her iconography. The author's translation of the “Statues for the Ordination for the Beata Francesca” and the scholarly apparatus of detailed endnotes and bibliography conclude this book. The author's own photographs are complemented throughout with museum photography in both color and black-and-white.

I found one of the subthemes of Scanlan's study applicable to women beyond the boundaries of fifteenth-century Rome and religious communities. Whether in myth or legend, visual images or written texts, the constant paradox of women is to be circumscribed by the preservation of their virtue or subjugation through erotic behavior. Christian salvation was possible for women by experiencing mystical union with the divine. Scanlan's detailed discussions of the iconology of Francesca Romana with the Madonna (plates 13 through 17 and from page 63f.) were enlightening as to the transformations of both of these female figures and for Christian attitudes toward women. Divine and Demonic Imagery presents a persuasive argument for the visual as primary documentation for the study of church history.