Rome in the Medieval Imagination

FAIN: FA-55923-11

Thomas F.X. Noble
University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN 46556-4635)

Rome, as a set of republican and imperial ideals, as the source of legal and institutional models, as Virgil’s dream and aspiration, as the home of popes and martyrs, and as a physical reality, was constantly present to medieval writers, rulers, and pilgrims. My proposed book aims for the first time to bring together all the different Romes imagined by medieval people. Individual chapters will explore the late antique legacy; the Virgilian tradition—especially Rome as destiny; Rome as a source of imperial and urban political ideas; continuing knowledge of Rome as a physical city; Christian Rome—the city of bishops and martyrs; and criticisms of Rome and the Romans. Drawing on Latin and vernacular sources of many kinds, the book will attend to positive and negative perceptions of Rome and to both the concrete and the imaginary. I envision a book useful to medievalists of every specialization, for all encounter Rome but none has a guide to what Rome meant, stood for, signified.