From the rooftops of medieval churches and cathedrals across Western Europe, gargoyles look out over the world below—stone figures shaped by both engineering necessity and artistic imagination.
Janetta Rebold Benton, distinguished professor of art history at Pace University and author of Holy Terrors: Gargoyles on Medieval Buildings, explores the surprising history of these architectural waterspouts and their development in the Romanesque and Gothic eras of the 11th-15th centuries.
Benton reveals how medieval sculptors transformed functional drainage systems into expressive images of humans, animals, and monstrous hybrid creatures and clarifies the distinction between true gargoyles and related grotesques. Along the way, she considers the engaging legend of La Gargouille of Rouen, a story that helped shape the mythology surrounding these forms.
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