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The main aim of this book (1) is to provide a social history of the religious architecture commissioned in the kingdom of Naples under three generations of French kings (from the conquest of Charles of Anjou in 1266 to the death of his grandson, Robert the Wise in 1343).
The narrow streets of ancient Naples are like the bottoms of chasms that meet at right angles.
Some books enlighten and disappoint at the same time. This is how I felt having read Oleg Tarasov’s book. Originally Tarasov’s doktorskaia dissertatsiia (the second PhD), the book was first published in Russian and has now been painstakingly translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and lavishly published by Reaktion Books.
I do not know whether the Italian title of this book (Vita di casa) is an allusion to Mario Praz and his autobiography La casa della vita (Milan, 1958), but it would be fitting. In that book Mario Praz guides the reader through his Roman house and tells his life during the tour.
Nobody doubts the exceptional importance of the long reign of Louis IX (1226-70) as perceived either from modern historical perspectives, or presented in thirteenth-century (or later) views.