According to the author of this well-written and powerfully argued study, up until now the part played by sacred time and space in the process of state formation has been seriously underplayed. Pace Paul Monod's insightful and thoughtful survey, The power of kings: monarchy and religion in Europe, 1589–1715 (1999), I think it is true to say that there has been a historic tendency of scholars to adopt a dualistic reading in which the sacred is seen simply as an instrumentum regnis in the hands of the ruler. When such historians encounter an all-embracing interest in the sacred, perhaps most notoriously in the case of Philip ii of Spain, but also in that of Duke Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, those rulers' behaviour has been put down to religious fanaticism and bigotry. Instead, Cozzo takes the lead from such studies as Anna Coreth's classic Pietas Austriaca: Österreichische Frömmigkeit im Barock (1982; English translation, Indiana 2003) and Dieter Albrecht's massive Maximilian I von Bayern, 1573–1651 (1998) to offer a very fine case study the implications of which have a far wider relevance for our understanding not only of early modern state-building but also of the cultural work done by saints and devotions in the post-Tridentine Church. Above all, Cozzo shows how we need to get beyond reducing the religious reality of the Piedmont area to being simply a function of anti-Protestantism and, instead, to see how religion ‘acted as a modus vivendi et operandi of a multiform and polyglot society where the only language truly shared [by its inhabitants] was that of [religious] devotion’ (p. 19). Furthermore, the Savoyard dukes showed themselves skilled at deploying this language – above all through the gifting and exchange of relics and religious works of art – in order to build up dynastic allegiances with such key European families as the Habsburg, Bourbon, Gonzaga and d'Este. Here the Savoy had, as their trump card, the sindone (allegedly Christ's shroud) which Duke Emanuele Filiberto had transferred from Chambéry to Turin in 1578 and which he and his successors made the focus of an elaborate devotion that was closely connected with the fortunes of the ducal house. This can be seen, for example, in the timing of a public display of the sindone to coincide with the baptism of Filippo Emanuele in 1587. This strategy was integral to the Savoy dynasty's refashioning of Turin as a capital worthy of a power which was determined to be taken seriously in European politics. The re-entry of Emanuele Filiberto into Turin consequent on the terms of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) was accompanied, shortly after, by the appointment of a new archbishop of the city – Girolamo della Rovere – with whom the duke worked closely in order to recast his city in quasi-theocratic terms. One of Emanuele Filiberto's first acts was to site his ducal palace directly next to the cathedral and subsequently to make alterations in the adjacent chapel of the Shroud so that he could follow mass there without having to leave his palace. This development was of course roughly contemporaneous with Philip ii's construction of his palace-monastery dedicated to San Lorenzo, El Escorial, and comparisons with the Spanish Habsburgs do not stop there. Just to mention one further example, both dynasties traditionally chose their confessors from the ranks of the Dominicans. Ducal religious policy was further developed, in 1591, through the translation to Turin of the relics of San Maurizio, captain of the Theban legion of early Christian martyrs, whose cult remained dynastic rather than civic and the focus of a network of devotions to saints the length and breadth of the dukes' expanding dominions. Similarly, the revival of the cults of San Baudolino in Alessandria, San Gaudenzio in Novara, SS Marziano and Innocenzio in Tortona and S. Secondo in Asti, saw the Savoy muscling in on what had been essentially civic devotions by means of carefully timed and staged patronage and gifts. In this way, the dynasty strengthened its hold on a realm that on its return in 1559 still contained significant pockets of autonomous cities; most notably Gonzaga-held Monferrato but also Saluzzo, where the presence of Protestant heterodoxy gave the Savoy the excuse it needed to annex the region. In strategically significant Mondovì, the second largest city after Turin, the Savoy made clear their dominance over what had been a city with a proud tradition of autonomy by firstly demolishing the two most important churches in the city centre, San Domenico and the cathedral, and building in their place a fortress, and secondly by investing heavily in the new Marian sanctuary of Vicoforte just outside the city. (Cozzo has already devoted an excellent study to this cult, together with an edition of a contemporary account: ‘Regina Montis Regalis’: il santuario di Mondovì da devozione locale a tempio sabaudo, Rome 2002). In sum, Paolo Cozzo is to be warmly congratulated on a well-written study that makes a significant contribution to our understanding not only of dynastic religion but also of early modern state formation. In addition, this very reasonably priced volume offers a selection of well-chosen images (several from that striking instrument of dynastic propaganda, the Theatrum Sabaudiae of 1682) as well as that rarest of finds in an Italian academic book published these days, a consolidated bibliography (of forty-five pages). Bravo Cozzo! Bravo il Mulino!