Customer Reviews

Recounting the making of a city - By: Sandra, 03 Mar 2006
A fascinating reading, "Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308" reconstructs the wayin which events & passions reshaped the city of Rome after the end of the Roman Empire, from the insertion of Byzantine buildings & churchesin the urban tissue to the progressive release of land from monasteries to build the medieval Rome, from the refusal of St. Johnin Lateran as symbol of Christianity to the increasing favour of pilgrims & local people for the holy sites of St. Peter's & St. Paul's. Roman ruins became the main walls of early Middle Ages buildings. Ancient temples turned into marketplaces. Towers flourished everywhere - for aggression & defence - even one (now destroyed) to spy into the Palace of Popes at St. Johnin Lateran. Monasteries enlarged immoderatelyin territory & power, then scaled down giving up land for building the core of the historical centre of present-day Rome - from Circo Massimo to Piazza del Popolo. Krautheimer's narration helps readers regain the historical reason behind streets, churches & buildings of pre-Renaissance Rome.