John Osborne is a medievalist and cultural historian, with a special focus on the city of Rome in the early Middle Ages. Following the completion of his studies at the University of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art (Ph.D. 1979), he has held faculty and administrative positions in Canada at the University of Victoria, Queen’s University, and Carleton University in Ottawa, where now in retirement he retains appointments as both Distinguished Research Professor and Dean Emeritus. He has a long-standing interest in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua. In 1984 he worked under the auspices of the Soprintendenza to document the fragmentary murals on the walls of the atrium, and in 2000 organized an international conference in Rome to celebrate the centenary of the excavation.
Back: Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome: view into the Theodotus Chapel (photo: Roberto Sigismondi)
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Santa Maria Antiqua
Giulia Bordi is Associate Professor of Medieval Art History at the Roma Tre University. Her research interests lie in the field of medieval wall painting and the interaction between architecture, liturgical furnishings and wall painting in the churches of Rome and Byzantium (4th–13th centuries CE). She began to work at Santa Maria Antiqua in 2000. Exploring its intriguing and complex stratigraphy of painted plaster layers, she is systematically mapping them and proposing a new chronology of the church’s decorative campaigns from the 6th to the 11th centuries. With Maria Andaloro and Giuseppe Morganti she curated the exhibition: Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio (17 March - 11 September 2016).
the sistine chapel of the early middle ages
Following a successful medical career in Cambridge, in 2003 Eileen Rubery joined the Courtauld Institute in London, where she gained a ‘Master of Arts: Distinction’ and decided to focus on first millennial Roman Art, especially the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in the Roman Forum. Greek inscriptions on the apsidal wall in the sanctuary display texts associated with the Lateran Council of 649, convened by Pope Martin I. Her work focuses on the meanings of these frescoes, as well as on several images of the medical saints, Cyrus and John, whose presence suggests that the church had become a site of healing. Eileen has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Birkbeck, the Courtauld Institute and the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has also led several tours of Early Christian Rome.
Eileen Rubery Giulia Bordi John Osborne
EDITED BY EILEEN RUBERY, GIULIA BORDI, AND JOHN OSBORNE
Santa Maria Antiqua The Sistine Chapel of the Early Middle Ages
HARVEY MILLER PUBLISHERS
The Roman church of Santa Maria Antiqua, situated in the Forum at the foot of the Palatine Hill, was inserted into an existing imperial complex, probably in the course of the 6th century. Over the following 600 years it was decorated with a unique series of frescoes bearing evidence of imperial, papal and monastic patronage. Although the interior was apparently abandoned in the 9th century, limited use of outer areas, most notably the atrium, continued through to the 11th century; but it was not long before the complex was completely buried under the rising floor of the Forum. Excavations in 1900 exposed a largely intact structure containing hundreds of 6th–11th century frescoes, in some places over four layers deep. Gordon Rushforth, the first Director of the British School at Rome, hailed the discovery as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the Eighth Century’. This volume contains the proceedings of an International Conference held at the British School at Rome on 4–6 December, 2013, as well as a number of subsequent studies. The conference also marked the 75th anniversary of the death of Gordon Rushforth, the author of one of the earliest significant accounts of the building and its murals. In addition to papers dealing with the overall understanding of the site and the history of its exploration, many chapters document the results of the major project of preservation and research led by the Parco archeologico del Colosseo and carried out over the last 12 years on the fabric of the church, its frescoes, and structural issues such as drainage. Much of the restoration was funded by the World Monuments Fund. Lavish illustrations of these frescoes make this book an indispensable resource, not only for those working on early medieval Rome but also for those interested in contemporaneous material elsewhere in Europe and Byzantium.
Front: Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome: Maria Regina from the ‘palimpsest wall’ to the right of the apse (photo: Roberto Sigismondi)
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