Constantine and Rome PDF
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Constantine & Rome . Yale University Press New Haven and London Copyright © 2004 by Yale University.All rights reserved.This book may not be reproduced,in whole or in part, including illustrations,in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 ofthe U.S.Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Rebecca Gibb.Set in Adobe Minion by Duke & Company,Devon,Pennsylvania.Printed in the United States ofAmerica by Sheridan Books,Ann Arbor,Michigan. Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holloway,R.Ross,1934– Constantine and Rome / R.Ross Holloway. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-300-10043-4 (alk.paper) 1.Architecture,Early Christian—Italy—Rome. 2.Architecture—Italy—Rome. 3.Constantine I,Emperor of Rome,d.337—Art patronage. 4.Christianity and art—Italy—Rome. 5.Rome (Italy)—Buildings,structures, etc. I.Title. NA5620.A1H65 2004 722′.7—dc22 2003018712 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability ofthe Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity ofthe Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents ix xiii I Constantine and the Christians 1 II The Arches 19 III Basilicas,Baptistry,and Burial 57 IV The Tomb of St.Peter 120 157 177 179 187 Preface had its beginnings many years ago in the excavations below St.Peter’s.Standing beside one ofthe Roman tomb buildings that had been filled in and then covered over by the floor ofConstantine’s basilica,I could look up through a modern ventilator into the nave of the vast Renaissance St.Peter’s that replaced Constantine’s shrine for the apostle.Pagan an- tiquity and medieval Christianity were around me just as much as was their Renaissance suc- cessor.Constantine the Great set these changes in motion,but the Constantinian moment in Rome was brief,hardly more than thirteen years between 312 and 326.In fact it was even shorter because in 326 Constantine returned to a capital that he had not seen for a decade.And his sights were already set on Constantinople,the new Rome on the straits between Europe and Asia where he was about to establish his new capital.Yet the cityscape ofRome of326 was not that ofRome of312.It was significantly Christian,but it was also overwhelmingly pagan.And in this way it mirrored,I have come to believe,the personality ofits ruler.Constantine was a Roman emperor and continued to carry out the civic and religious duties of the pagan em- peror.He was the patron ofthe Christians but exercised his patronship from an exalted posi- tion in respect to the ministers ofthe church,a position which,as a divinized ruler,he main- tained even in respect to the Christian God.Yet Constantine had prepared for death in a tomb of imperial dignity on the Via Labicana in the company of two Christian martyrs and with provision for a following of the faithful beneath the roof of the apse-ended hall attached to the imperial mausoleum.This complex and the group of other apse-ended basilicas which were built in the cemeteries along the roads leading south and east from the city are the most ix
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