Over 200 Photographs

Here is the ultimate historical guidebook for the Spanish Colonial Mission churches, Presidio chapels and asistencias from San Diego to Sonoma, California. As Thomas J. Steele, S.J. said, "Donald Toomey has done a major favor to each visitor to any one of the missions of California." These missions--all of them without exception--are historic, venerable, and handsome, but they are also profoundly instructive. Donald Toomey has assembled all the basic historical facts of each mission, tracing each site from its late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth-century origin through its various disasters (fires and earthquakes predominate) and its various renovations up to the end of the twentieth century. He outlines each mission's success at achieving its purpose, and he expertly conveys to his reader his own deep appreciation of Provincial Baroque architecture, art, and church life.

DONALD F. TOOMEY is a retired geologist/paleontologist and Professor of Earth Science. He is also the author of geological field guides and numerous journal articles pertinent to his profession. Since retirement he has been associated with the award-winning Hispanic arts quarterly, TRADICION REVISTA. His articles on Hispanic devotional art and his many interviews of artists and artisans in this newly appreciated field led him to the Spanish colonial missions. He has photographed and written articles on the mission sites in northern Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Donald Toomey earned his bachelors degree from the University of New Mexico and his Ph.D. from Rice University and served as a photographer with the U.S. Army. He now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife Alisanne.

Softcover:
8 1/2 X 11
ISBN: 978-0-86534-329-0
277 pp.,$24.95