The Santa Maria Antiqua Complex in the Forum in Rome was probably established at the foot of the Palatine Hill in the 6th century. Over the following 600 years it was decorated with a unique series of frescoes bearing evidence of imperial, papal and monastic influences. Abandoned in the 9th century, limited use probably continued up to the 11th century. By the 17th century the complex was completely buried under the rising floor of the Forum. Excavations in 1900 exposed a largely intact complex containing hundreds of 6th-11th century frescoes, in some places over four layers deep and a unique Chapel of Medical Saints which suggests this was also an incubation site. The English Press hailed the site as the 'Sistine Chapel of the Ninth century'. Lavish illustrations of these frescoes, following recent restoration, make this book an indispensible resource, not only for those working on the church but also for those interested in contemporaneous material in medieval sites especially in Rome, Europe and Byzantium. This monograph contains the proceedings of an International Conference held at the British School at Rome on 4-6 December, 2013. It reports results of the major project of preservation and research led by the Soprintendenza and carried out over the last 12 years on the fabric of the church, its frescoes, floor, wall and ceiling mosaics, its drainage and infrastructure. Much of the restoration was funded by the World Monuments Fund. The conference also marked the 75th anniversary of the death of Gordon Rushforth, the first Director of the British School at Rome and the author of one of the earliest key papers on the S. Maria Antiqua site.

A history of Rome in the critical eighth century CE focusing on the evidence of material culture and archaeology.

Provides the first full study of the predecessor church of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, from late antique construction to Renaissance destruction.

After the Roman empire fell, medieval Europe continued to be fascinated by Rome itself, the 'chief of cities'. Once the hub of empire, in the early medieval period Rome became an important centre for western Christianity, first of all as the place where Peter, Paul and many other important early Christian saints were martyred: their deaths for the Christian faith gave the city the appellation 'Roma Felix', 'Happy Rome'. But in Rome the history of the faith, embodied in the shrines of the martyrs, coexisted with the living centre of the western Latin church. Because Peter had been recognised by Christ as chief among the apostles and was understood to have been the first bishop of Rome, his successors were acknowledged as patriarchs of the West and Rome became the focal point around which the western Latin church came to be organised. This book explores ways in which Rome itself was preserved, envisioned, and transformed by its residents, and also by the many pilgrims who flocked to the shrines of the martyrs. It considers how northern European cultures (in particular, the Irish and English) imagined and imitated the city as they understood it. The fourteen articles presented here range from the fourth to the twelfth century and span the fields of history, art history, urban topography, liturgical studies and numismatics. They provide an introduction to current thinking about the ways in which medieval people responded to the material remains of Rome's classical and early Christian past, and to the associations of centrality, spirituality, and authority which the city of Rome embodied for the earlier Middle Ages. Acknowledgements for grants in aid of publication are due to the Publication Fund of the College of Arts, Humanities, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences at University College Cork; to the Publication Fund of the National University of Ireland, Dublin; and to the Office of the Provost, Ohio Wesleyan University.

The reuse of architectural and sculptural materials (spoliation) was common centuries earlier than previously realized, during the Roman empire.

In this book, Liz James offers a comprehensive history of wall mosaics produced in the European and Islamic middle ages. Taking into account a wide range of issues, including style and iconography, technique and material, and function and patronage, she examines mosaics within their historical context. She asks why the mosaic was such a popular medium and considers how mosaics work as historical 'documents' that tell us about attitudes and beliefs in the medieval world. The book is divided into two part. Part I explores the technical aspects of mosaics, including glass production, labour and materials, and costs. In Part II, James provides a chronological history of mosaics, charting the low and high points of mosaic art up until its abrupt end in the late middle ages. Written in a clear and engaging style, her book will serve as an essential resource for scholars and students of medieval mosaics.

The palace of Nero is a visionary monument, decorated with monsters, fantastic animals and mythical scenes taken from the Homeric poems to create a colourful and seductive imagery. The part of this sumptuous ostentation of power that survived the damnatio memoriae of the emperor after his death is the pavilion on the Oppian Hill, over which the foundations of the new Baths of Trajan were built.0The volume opens with a portrait of Nero, a prince-artist whose complexity can only be guessed between the lines of a violently hostile biographical tradition. There follow, in order, the vicissitudes of the building, between rediscoveries (in the 15th century) and new condemnations (after the Council of Trent), an investigation into the ?grotesque? style from Raphael to the present day and a final chapter on the links with the imagery of contemporary art. The images that accompany the texts, as in all the volumes in this series, range from 19th-century paintings to maps and archaeological finds and, together with quotations, give the reader an unconventional and yet scholarly overview of the history of this magnificent monument.