PRINCIPALES RESULTADOS DE LAS ENTREVISTAS

Krautheimer's view o f church architecture in Rome is a cyclical one, bristling with revivals, dark ages and full-blown renaissances. The mid fifth century saw a Sistine Renaissance, the early ninth a Carolingian Renaissance, and the thirteenth a Constantinian or Late Antique Renaissance. In between, there was a Byzantine period, a mysterious dark age o f over a century from which no building survives, and, strangest o f all, a period from 860 to at least 1084 which is seldom even referred to. In repeating Krautheimer, various commentators have stretched the tw o dark ages, in turn building up the Carolingian period, to the extent that we are told that in the later eighth century ’’after a caesura o f 200 years, churches were once again sumptiously adorned with mosaics and painting” (Mit­ chell, 1980, 221), and that, by 1000, ’’not a single building had been erected at Rome for over 100 years” (Wilcox, 1981, 72).

By concentrating on these two periods I do not intend to overplay the case against the Carolingian Renaissance, nor to deny the most obvious archaeological and historical evidence, which undoubtably points to reduced rates o f new building in the two centuries before and after 755 and 860. However, by placing the dark ages in their contexts, and proceeding to consider the literary and archaeological evidence for what actual building work continued at these times, I hope to reduce the rigid artistic and chronological barriers set up over the past seventy years.

4.1 The First Dark Age, 640 - 755 AD

The period before our first dark age, that is 500-640, is not especially rich in new church-building. Between the times o f the wide-ranging building works o f Symmachus and Honorius I, during the years o f the Gothic Wars and Lombard invasions, are attested only

and is not attempted here for the additional reason that almost all examples were constructed prior to 500 AD.

the construction o f SS. Apostoli, S. Lorenzo fliori le Mura, and Gregory I's S. Victor monastery, as well as unknown works at S. Nicomedes (SS. Nereo & Achilleo at Domitil- la has also been tentatively assigned to this period - CBCR III, 133). O f these, only S. Lorenzo survives in a similar form. As we shall see, this is a total which compares unfa­ vourably with the century following Honorius I, a century which in addition saw great civil projects carried through. The primary reason for the view o f our dark age as such, I would suggest, is the unusually vigorous building regime o f Honorius I from 625-638 which precedes it, and from which two large basilicas survive today. The amount o f church construction in these 13 years overshadows not only our own period, but also the one which preceded it (in all, we know o f 5 new-built churches, including one at Tivoli, and several conversions and renovations - LP LXXII).

A further factor which strikes a heavy contrast between, in this case, our dark age and the subsequent Carolingian period is the former's so-called Byzantine character. Much has been written on the historical aspects o f the period o f the "Greek" popes, on the supposed eastern craftsmen at work in Rome after the Gothic Wars and throughout the seventh century, on the Byzantine church plans o f the cemetery basilicas and the use o f the Byzantine foot (3.2, above). Conversely, the Carolingian Renaissance apparently saw a revival o f traditional "Roman" ideas: the plan o f the Constantinian basilica, supposed fourth-century iconography in the mosaics, the re-adoption o f monumental inscriptions, and even fourth-century construction techniques (Krautheimer, 1942; Mitchell, 1980). At the same time the movement was "an attempt to revive the city's own glorious past by eliminating the 'foreign' Near Eastern influence in architecture as well as in any other field" (Krautheimer op. cit. 23).

But this is a very simplified and selective view. The problem with assigning every slight trend - or merely some new archaeological or architectural data from a specific church - to a "renaissance" is apparent in Krautheimefs description o f Honorius I's S. Pancrazio, which due to possible signs o f a rudimentary transept, large size, and the absence o f the Byzantine foot "represents a throwback to, or a renascence of, earlier

fourth or fifth-century Christian models in Rome" (CBCR III, 174): the hesitancy over the use o f "throwback" or "renascence" at least retains a hint o f ambiguity in the face o f such exiguous evidence, but is instructive for the unconscious parity it gives the terms. It would be tedious to list all the examples o f the supposedly "eliminated" Near Eastern influences which continued in Rome's architecture after the time o f Hadrian I, or the "traditional", "Roman" elements which had in fact remained in place throughout the "Byzantine" period^. Indeed, the classification o f architectural elements displayed in the buildings o f Rome according to these two streams is not helpful, considering their assimilation and fusion over at least 500 years before the start o f the Carolingian Renaissance.

A specific problem with the term, apparently recognised by Krautheimer by the time o f his "Profile o f a City", is that "Carolingian Renaissance" denotes entirely different things in Rome from those north o f the Alps (1980, 139fl). In the latter case it designates a wide-ranging cultural re-discovery o f Classical learning (much o f it directly imported fi'om Rome itself), whereas in Rome, the most it should be taken to mean is the occasional use o f a basilica plan based on the three "Constantinian" churches assigned to that emperor in the spurious Donation document^ (Krautheimer, 1942, 36). The political motives behind Leo Ill's and Charlemagne's emphasis on the Roman empire o f Constantine are well-known and generally accepted; the (later) architectural manifestation o f this interest in a handful o f Roman church plans is worthy o f note, but no more than that. Krautheimer

3 Traditional elements which run through the "Byzantine" period: basilica plans o f Honorius, Domnus, Leo n & Gregory III (see below, 4.1 #2, #4, # 9 & #10. A similar objection was raised by A. Ferma when Krautheimer outlined his concept in a conference in 1947 - RAC 1949, 202); the so-called Italian mosaic school (Nordhagen, 1965); elsewhere, Krautheimer himself insists that Rome remained essentially "western" in outlook (1980, 105). Byzantine elements which mn through the "(Carolingian" period: all the new buildings of Hadrian 1 and Leo III (including the works at the Lateran palace); the chapel of Leo IV at S. Clemente (Tronzo, 1987); regarding the apparent return to fourth-century, Roman styles and subjects in mosaics, it should be noted that Manuel Chrysoloras, a Byzantine writing in Rome in 1411, considered that all surviving mosaics in the city "truly pertain to Greece or even to Constantinople" (Mango, 1972, 252). S. Prassede copies the sixth-century mosaic o f SS. Cosma & Damiano rather than any earlier model. 4 In fact, the only genuine (Constantinian church plan adopted in the ninth century at Rome was that of S. Peter's - and even the most similar im itation, S. Prassede, has two, not four aisles. Since Krautheimer's work on this subject, what we might term the "real (Constantinian church plan" has emerged: that of the huge cemeterial basilicas with their continuous apse-ambulatoria and attached circular mausolea (S. Agnese, S. Lorenzo, S. Sebastiano, SS. Marcellino & Pietro, the "anonymous Via Prenestina", and possibly the new S. Marco on the Via Ardeatina). In no cases was this type revived during the ninth century.

originally used the adjective "Carolingian" as a chronological convenience (op. cit. 3), although it is difficult to disassociate fuller, pohtical implications from the word. Regard­ ing the architectural traces in Rome, perhaps the expression "Constantinian Revival" would be more accurate, even if stated so baldly this too would be susceptable to vast and indiscriminate interpretations^.

Before we discuss what was actually built between the pontificates o f Honorius I and Hadrian I we should first consider the possible biases in our evidence, textual and archaeological. Our primary, almost sole source for church-building in the period 640-772 is o f course the Liber Pontificalis. It certainly records a reduced number o f newly-con­ structed edifices in our period, especially when considered in comparison with the amount o f building in the period 772-860. Delogu takes this imbalance at face value, considering that the entire text "provides a continuous and homogeneous series o f facts about certain papal activities" (1988a, 32). Davis, however, sees the composition o f the biographies as far from homogeneous. Commenting on the life o f Stephen II he notes that "the author saw no need to fall back on church restorations to fill out his text, though a few were added by a later reviser" (LP ed. 1992, 51). The biography o f Gregory II exists in two versions, an "original" and a later adaption which "redresses the lack o f church repairs and endowments" (op. cit. 1). This idea that the lists o f buildings and donations in the Liber Pontificalis are somehow "filling" is also proposed by Geertman. Remarking on the vast documentation o f donations and restorations to churches in the lives o f Hadrian I and Leo III and their comparative lack o f history (after the first part o f the former), he theorises that a conscious effort was being made here to excise subjects which might upset the popes' political machinations with the Franks, especially considering the popularity o f the

5 The current monolithic idea of the Carolingian Renaissance as an all-embracing cultural entity means