As she writes in her foreword, the goal of Anne-Orange Poilpré’s new book on the Maiestas Domini is to analyze the origin and development of this iconographical theme from its emergence in Early Christian Rome and Ravenna until the reign of Charles the Bald (14). It is the most comprehensive work on the subject since Frederick van der Meer’s pioneering book of 1938, and is thus considerably broader in scope than other studies that have dealt with the Maiestas in the Carolingian and Romanesque periods.[1] Conspicuously displayed in church apses, sculpted Romanesque and Gothic tympana, as well as on book covers and the frontispieces of manuscripts, the Maiestas Domini is one of the most significant images in Christian iconography. Drawing on a variety of Biblical sources (Is. 6: 1–4; Ez. 1: 4–28; Rev. 4: 2–9), the image of Maiestas Domini usually consists of a frontal Christ surrounded by the four creatures of the Apocalypse, with or without the Gospels as their attributes. Aside from offering a vision of God at the end of time, the image fuses a variety of interrelated ideas regarding the Scriptures, the Church, and the Christian Cosmos, thus reflecting early biblical exegesis. Needless to say, this...