St. Paul's Outside the Walls: A Roman Basilica, from Antiquity to the Modern Era

This volume examines one of Rome's most influential churches: the principal basilica dedicated to St Paul. Nicola Camerlenghi traces nearly two thousand years of physical transformations to the church, from before its construction in the fourth century to its reconstruction following a fire in 1823. By recounting this long history, he restores the building to its rightful place as a central, active participant in epochal political and religious shifts in Rome and across Christendom, as well as a protagonist in Western art and architectural history. Camerlenghi also examines how buildings in general trigger memories and anchor meaning, and how and why buildings endure, evolve, and remain relevant in cultural contexts far removed from the moment of their inception. At its core, Saint Paul's exemplifies the concept of building as a process, not a product: a process deeply interlinked with religion, institutions, history, cultural memory, and the arts. This study also includes state-of-the-art digital reconstructions synthesizing a wealth of historical evidence to visualize and analyze the earlier (now lost) stages of the building's history, offering glimpses into heretofore unexamined parts of its long, rich life.

Author: Nicola Camerlenghi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 08/30/2018
Pages: 396
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 3.04lbs
Size: 11.32h x 8.88w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781108429511

About the Author
Camerlenghi, Nicola: - Nicola Camerlenghi is Assistant Professor of Art History at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. He is a native of Italy and Switzerland, and previously he was a fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana and the Swiss Institute in Rome. His collaborative projects in the digital humanities have been awarded grants from the Kress Foundation and can be found at www.mappingrome.com. His website associated with the Basilica of St Paul's can be found at https: //Dartgo.org/virtualbasilica.