The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church

Margaret Visser writes far more than a study of a building that happens to be a church. It is even far more than a study of a twelve year old saint. Her book is a retelling of the basis of Christianity, the glory of sacrificial love. For seventeen hundred years people have held in reverence the memory of the little girl who defeated the powerful Romans with the sheer force of her love for Christ. The church built over her tomb (St. Agnes, Outside the Walls) as well as the one built over the place of her death (St Agnes in Agony) and, for that matter, the hundreds (thousands?) St Agnes’s built throughout the world, throughout the centuries, have all been “Geometries of Love.” Thank you, Margaret Visser for giving us this masterpiece.

This could have been a terrific guide to absolutely everything in the fine old Roman church of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura, but instead it bogs down in mystical meanderings and fifth-rate philosophizing. These aspects of the book might be of interest to those who actually believe such things, but for me it just produced eye-rolling. I found myself skimming page after page and saying impatiently to the author, "Will you please just get on with it!" There's a great guidebook to Sant' Agnese in there somewhere, but the information is buried among all the other pious maundering that bloats the book to over 250 pages. There are enough footnotes and a long enough bibliography that this could almost be a PhD dissertation! The only way it would be of any use as a guide book would be to go through it with a highlighter, and mark the passages of relevance to the church itself, while ignoring the interminable sermonizing.

The Geometry of Love is clearly a labor of love, years in the making. Margaret Visser takes the reader on a very detailed and fascinating tour of the extraordinary (though Visser terms it ordinary in the book's subtitle) Roman Church St. Agnes Outside the Walls, which was built of the tomb of St. Agnes, an early Christian martyr. Along the way Visser imparts pertinent lessons in Catholicism, history, architecture, art, mythology, etymology, geography, and politics, all leading to a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the building and its history. I found myself engrossed in much of what Visser writes, and learned much from the book. But some of the detail in the book can be overwhelming, and sometimes a bit boring; and, the book has one serious defect: other than on its dust jacket, the book has no illustrations or photos. Visser describes many statues, paintings, architectural features, etc., well, but photos would have been invaluable. It is, thankfully, possible to view images online.

I knew about the book and I visited Sant’Agnese before. When I planned my most recent visit, I made sure tot was this book. The book is rich, and almost indispensible for any visit. One can even read it without visiting the church and site to get a thorough impression of its beauty and its complex and interesting historical context.

I read this book before going to Rome for the first time, and was moved to take the #60 bus out the Via Nomentana to the churches described: Sant' Agnese and Santa Costanza. As marvelous as that day trip was to see catacombs, mosaics, and bell tower, the internal journey that the book inspired with its skillfully woven sources and stories of these ancient churches was even more profound and illuminating. Starting with a single place, Visser illuminates eternal universal truths about the sacred and the trajectories of our souls. I was grateful to read it and then to visit Rome to feel it yet again.

This book is an in-depth discussion of the meaning of church architecture from a laymans (lay woman's, in this case)perspective. As Visser points out, someone on the "inside" of a faith--in her case, Christianity-- does tend to have insights into the meaning of its traditions that an outside observer might not. This book is full of little insights that are just astounding at times. However, Visser tends to wax poetic on the glories of Christianity every third sentence or so, which makes reading this book for the purpose of studying architecture more of a crapshoot and less of a solid learning experience. By all means, if you need a reinforcement of why your Christian faith is so amazing, get this book. If you want a good in-depth discussion of Christian architecture without having to sit through a sermon, this is probably not the book for you.

A beautiful narrative description of a church dedicated to one of the saintly persons of Christianity. The explanations are simple yet profound. The descriptive explanations are clear and easily understood. A thorough and in depth exploration of the meanings of Christianity as depicted in the architecture of a church.

I thought for sure that this book would bore me to death but the exact opposite happened. Margaret Visser takes you on a wonderful journey through the Church of St. Agnes Outside the Walls in Rome and through it all she weaves the story of the development of this church with Roman Catholic Theology. My only complaint is that it screamed to have illustrations and pictures so that it would have been easier to visualize. I found myself going to the internet to pull pictures of the church so that I could get a visual feel for it. Despite that, it is a great read for any person not only contemplating a visit to this church but also to anyone interested in how theology, worship and architecture developed throughout the ages.

never bought a copy of this book - dont know why it is on my review list.