Invisible City analyzes conventual architecture in terms of the politics of sight, "the optics of power", the relationship between flesh and stone. It uncovers the connections between the bodies of the nuns and the walls that housed them, presenting the architecture of female convents as a metaphor for the body of the aristocratic female virgin nun.

Hills' extraordinary study is a nuanced and innovative incarnation of the secular city from its sacred recesses that should have broad appeal and wide-ranging influence. Invisible City is a brilliant, stunning book.

"...this masterful synthesis is a model for excavating the complexities of premodern convent life and suggestions of intriguing possibilities for future research. The extensive selection of plates included will prove particularly useful for those unfamiliar with the visuals of monastic architecture."--Confraternitas "Aside from bringing to our attention a series of striking buildings that have never before been considered as a coherent group, one of Hills's major contributions is her archival work and her fascinating analysis of convents in the context of urban life and the social and economic structures of seventeenth-century Naples."--Reviews in History "Hills's extraordinary study is a nuanced and innovative incarnation of the secular city from its sacred recesses that should have broad appeal and wide-ranging influence. Invisible City is a brilliant, stunning book."--John A. Marino, University of California, San Diego "A significant contribution to the field.... Invisible City is replete with new ideas and is exemplary in its archival depth."--Emma Stirrup, Oxford Art Journal "Aside from bringing to our attention a series of striking buildings that have never before been considered as a coherent group, one of Hills's major contributions is her archival work and her fascinating analysis of convents in the context of urban life and the social and economic structures of seventeenth-century Naples."--Reviews in History "...this masterful synthesis is a model for excavating the complexities of premodern convent life and suggestions of intriguing possibilities for future research. The extensive selection of plates included will prove particularly useful for those unfamiliar with the visuals of monastic architecture."--Confraternitas "Helen Hills's Invisible City illuminates the rich and introverted world of seventeenth-century Neapolitan convents. In this ground-breaking study, Professor Hills brings early modern Naples to life. Her sensitive reading of architecture restores to the nuns their own voice and reveals the complex intersection of social class, gender, and urban politics. Helen Hills demonstrates that, as institutional patrons, the aristocratic women in the conventual communities of Naples were by no means subservient to a dominant religious patriarchy, but boldly asserted their own distinctive social, spiritual and aesthetic values. In the process, they contributed in no small measure to shaping one of the pre-eminent urban centers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe."-John Pinto, Princeton University "Professor Hills's book is outstanding for its richly nuanced examination of the relation between architecture and gendered identity in Neapolitan convents. Demonstrating how convents formed an integral part of the spiritual, political, economic, and urban ambience of Naples, she makes an important contribution to our understanding of female monasticism and its social functions."-- Marilyn Dunn, Loyola University Chicago "Hills's extraordinary study is a nuanced and innovative incarnation of the secular city from its sacred recesses that should have broad appeal and wide-ranging influence. Invisible City is a brilliant, stunning book."--John A. Marino, University of California, San Diego "Invisible City examines the social and moral impulses that put nuns into Neapolitan convents and the buildings that housed them, presenting them as intertwined components of a culture of aristocratic virginity. Massively researched and bristling with ideas expressed in vigorous, vivid prose, Helen Hills's brilliant book explores the paradox that, invisible in their unworldly cloisters, nuns built visually imposing vantage points for surveying the family palaces and the secular city that they had abandoned physically but in which they retained powerful cultural influence."-Stanley Chojnacki, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "A significant contribution to the field.... Invisible City is replete with new ideas and is exemplary in its archival depth."--Emma Stirrup, Oxford Art Journal

Helen Hills is Professor of History of Art at the University of York. She is the author of Inlaid Polychromatic Marble Decoration in Early Modern Sicily: Invention and Identity and the editor of Architecture and the Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe.