A women’s History of the Christian Church

Cover for a university level text by Elizabeth Gillan Muir.

The cover of this inclusive and comprehensive examination of the contributions of women over the last two thousand years to the development of the Christian church features Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Joan of Arc (1882). The cropping of the artwork and the direction of Joan’s gaze toward the title create a close relationship between title block and image and consequently a feeling of intimacy is conveyed by the cover. The inverted triangle at the bottom of the title block represents the female symbol “the chalice” while also invoking the “medieval standard.”

The “standard” which frames the endorsements on the back cover wraps around to the spine providing an interesting shape in which to house the spine copy.

University of Toronto Press
Image of D.G. Rossetti’s Joan of Arc provided by Wikimedia Commons
(1909: given to Fitzwilliam Museum by Fairfax Murray, Charles)