A monumental achievement, this very big book (measuring 12.5x14"), was 15 years in the making, and yet that time period is 35 years short of anthropologist Fontana's devotion to the subject. He
lives within a mile of Mission San Xavier del Bac and is a foremost authority on its history and art. His text offers thorough investigation of every facet of the Mission known as the Sistine
Chapel of the New World. It was built by Spanish missionaries in the late 1700s, and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963, visited by 200,000 people each year at its remote location
in the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona. This book is unique in that it inventories and illustrates in color (200 photos) nearly all of the painted and sculptured art (although some 180
angels are absent, for reasons of space). Photography is by Edward McCain. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
