A cultural anthropologist of the commonplace, Visser is best known for exploring mealtime conventions in 1991's Rituals of Dinner. In The Geometry of Love, she moves from food to faith, providing a rich, often revelatory tour of a small church just outside Rome, Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura. Its architectural design gives shape to the book's structure, so readers — like visitors — begin at the windowed entranceway and end at the subterranean fourth-century crypt of the church's namesake, 12-year-old martyr Agnes. Delighting in detail, Visser illuminates the stories embedded in the ancient layers of mosaics, frescoes, and marble. The result is a marvelous window into the ways a house of worship can give concrete shape to spiritual experience.
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