The Making of Medieval Rome: A New Profile of the City, 400–1420 by Hendrik Dey
Dale Kinney
Reviewed by: The Making of Medieval Rome: A New Profile the City, 400–1420 by Hendrik Dey Dale Kinney Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021. Pp. ix + 338. ISBN: 978-11-08-83853-5 Dey's "new profile" Rome in Middle Ages is explicitly intended to supersede a forty-year-old classic, City Richard Krautheimer. This tricky endeavor, not least because Dey, although an accomplished archaeologist who has already published important book and several significant articles on medieval Rome, neither decades research experience nor eminence attained Krautheimer when he began his 1973, at age 76. pulls it off well, approaching countermodel respectfully demonstrating that what now appear be its shortcomings could remedied simple updating; subject had reconceived. differences between books are stark. aimed write history "through, rather than of" Rome's churches, houses, fortifications as they arose within ancient ruins defined "inheritance." goal reconstruct changing "lived experience" city through examination material culture much more broadly defined. Krautheimer's narrative was framed ideo-political histories German tradition Gregorovius, Schramm, Caspar. shaped astonishing spate Italian archaeological publications since 1980 contemporaneous work social historians like Sandro Carocci. results obvious Tables Contents. begins with Constantine (312) ends decampment papacy for Avignon 1308, intermediate chapters such topics Pope Gregory Great, Carolingian Renaissance, rebirth" twelfth century. divisions sometimes bear political titles well ("Byzantine Rome"), but chronology largely determined or phases: transition (401–552, ch. 2); Byzantine cultural dominance (552–705, 3); papal republic (705–882, 4); "The Long Twilight Ages" (882–1046, 5). [End Page 551] Art may chafe collapse following nearly 400 years into just two blocks (1046–1230, 6, 1230–1420, 7), especially elision century distinctive phase artistic production. It here essential difference profiles comes sharpest relief: relatively unconcerned high art intellectual constructs twelfth-century renovatio, focusing instead realia physical existence: structure, demographics, architectural instantiation power. particularly concerned calling them "the single most problem" period covered Chapter 2. On basis documents related pork dole, calculates catastrophic decline population from about 700,000–750,000 367, half number fifty later, pitiful 50,000–60,000 around 535. nadir have been 20,000–30,000 eighth century, after which numbers slowly climbed 40,000–80,000 1300, only halved again Black Plague. Regarding population's distribution, repeatedly corrects notion begun concentrate southern Campus Martius near Tiber—the so-called abitato—as early sixth century; fact, people were spread "spots" all over area inside Aurelian Wall until second eleventh clustered aqueducts, roads, major churches. Readers unfamiliar literature will amazed learn residential development Imperial Fora late ninth tenth centuries, complete massive earth-moving projects create arable surfaces. vitality secular life degradation one great revelations post-1980 research. I learned those the...
Journal of Late Antiquity