Alison Perchuk

“Medieval Los Angeles” is a work of medievalism studies, an interdisciplinary humanities field concerned with the formation and function of representations of the Middle Ages in later eras, whether scholarly or popular and regardless of medium. It explores how neomedieval art, architecture, and urbanism blended tropes of California as “Our Italy” and “Anglo-Saxon” to domesticate Southland for the mainly White Protestant immigrants of the era. Drawing on papers of architects, artists, clients, collectors, and institutions, ephemera, maps, newspapers, and photographs, and the monuments themselves, this book contributes to medievalism studies, art and architectural history, and American studies by offering the first scholarly analysis of medievalism’s role in the forging of modern California.