Old Saint Peter's, Rome British School at Rome Studies Series

St Peter's Basilica in Rome is arguably the most important church in Western Christendom, and is among the most significant buildings anywhere in the world. However, the church that is visible today is a youthful upstart, only four hundred years old compared to the twelve-hundred-year-old church whose site it occupies. A very small proportion of the original is now extant, entirely covered over by the new basilica, but enough survives to make reconstruction of the first St Peter's possible and much new evidence has been uncovered in the past thirty years. This is the first full study of the older church, from its late antique construction to Renaissance destruction, in its historical context. An international team of historians, art historians, archaeologists and liturgists explores aspects of the basilica's history, from its physical fabric to the activities that took place within its walls and its relationship with the city of Rome.

Introduction; 1. St Peter's and the city of Rome between Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages Paolo Liverani; 2. From Constantine to Constans: the chronology of the construction of St Peter's Basilica Richard Gem; 3. Spolia in the fourth-century basilica Lex Bosman; 4. The early Christian Baptistery of St Peter's Olof Brandt; 5. The representation of Old St Peter's Basilica in the Liber Pontificalis Rosamond McKitterick; 6. The Mausoleum of Honorius: late Roman imperial Christianity and the city of Rome in the fifth century Meaghan McEvoy; 7. Popes, emperors and clergy at Old St Peter's from the fourth to the eighth century Alan Thacker; 8. The Roman liturgical year and the early liturgy of St Peter's Peter Jeffery; 9. Interactions between liturgy and politics in Old St Peter's, 670–741: John the Archcantor, Sergius I and Gregory III Éamonn Ó Carragáin; 10. A reconstruction of the Oratory of John VII (705–707) Antonella Ballardini and Paola Pogliani; 11. Old St Peter's and the Iconoclastic Controversy Charles McClendon; 12. The Veronica, the Vultus Christi, and the veneration of icons in medieval Rome Ann van Dijk; 13. The Carolingians and the Oratory of Saint Peter the Shepherd Joanna Story; 14. Plus Caesare Petrus: the Vatican Obelisk and the approach to St Peter's John Osborne; 15. The legendary of St Peter's Basilica: hagiographic traditions and innovations in the late eleventh century Carmela Vircillo Franklin; 16. The stucco crucifix of Saint Peter's reconsidered: textual sources and visual evidence for the Renaissance copy of a medieval silver crucifix Katharina Christa Schüppel; 17. St Peter's in the fifteenth century: Paul II, the archpriests and the case for continuity Carol M. Richardson; 18. Filarete's renovation of the Porta Argentea at Old St Peter's Robert Glass; 19. The altar of Saint Maurice and the invention of tradition in Saint Peter's Catherine Fletcher; Epilogue. A hybrid history: the antique basilica with a modern dome Bram Kempers; Appendix. Letter of the Canons of St Peter's to Paul V concerning the demolition of the old basilica, 1605 Carol M. Richardson and Joanna Story.

Rosamund McKitterick is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Sidney Sussex College. She has published on literacy, manuscript transmission, perceptions of the past, and political culture in the early Middle Ages. In addition to many articles, chapters in books, edited books and monographs, her most recent books include History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004), Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008), and Rome across Time and Space: Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, c.500–1400 (with C. Bolgia and J. Osborne, Cambridge, 2011).
John Osborne is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University, Ottawa. His publications cover topics as varied as the Roman catacombs, the fragmentary mural paintings from excavated churches such as San Clemente and S. Maria Antiqua, the decorative program of the church of San Marco in Venice, seventeenth-century antiquarian drawings of medieval monuments, cultural transmission between Western Europe and Byzantium, and the medieval understanding and use of Rome's heritage of ancient buildings and statuary.
Carol M. Richardson is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Edinburgh. Her book Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century (2009) was described as 'a milestone in the history not only of artistic patronage but also of the papacy in fifteenth-century Rome [which] will become a standard work for scholars to return to again and again' (Simon Ditchfield, Art History 34/1 (2011)). She has also edited a number of Open University textbooks which are widely used to teach history of art on both sides of the Atlantic.
Joanna Story is Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Leicester, specialising in interdisciplinary research into the history and archaeology of Europe in the age of Charlemagne. She has published widely on the contacts between Anglo-Saxon England and the Continen