Die Kirchen Roms im Mittelalter 1050-1300. Liturgische Ausstattung und Architektur (Corpus Cosmatorum II), Band 7: Kirchen P–Z und Corpus Cosmatorum III

The aim of this application is the completion of the corpus "The Churches of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, 1050–1300" (Corpus Cosmatorum II and Corpus Cosmatorum III) by March 2028. The project, which deals with the architecture and liturgical furnishing of the medieval churches of Rome from the 11th to the end of the 13th century, was started in 2002 by Prof. Dr. Cornelius Claussen at the University of Zurich (cf. SNSF project 101212_124424). In 2010, it was suspended due to the retirement of the project leader. Since 2015, it has been continued as a cooperative project of the chairs for medieval Art History of the Istituto di storia e teoria dell'arte e dell'architettura (ISA) at the Accademia di Architettura (AAM), Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Mendrisio (Prof. Dr. Daniela Mondini), and the Institute for Art History at the University of Zurich (KHIST UZH) (Prof. Dr. Carola Jäggi), financed again by the SNSF (project 101216_153229, January 2015 to March 2018). Since April 2018, the project has been running as a SNSF Research Infrastructure (10FI 13_170405 and 10FI_198148).
At present, four of the planned seven volumes are published. The manuscript of the 5th volume with the three "large" Marian churches of S. Maria in Aracoeli, S. Maria Maggiore and S. Maria in Trastevere, has been sent to the publisher by the end of 2023. Vol 6 is currently under progress and is planned to be completed as a manuscript ready for the publisher by the End of March 2025. It is exclusively dedicated to the two important commemorative churches of St. Paul’s and St. Peter’s (S. Paolo fuori le mura and S. Pietro in Vaticano).
In the funding phase—for which we are applying here and which we expect to last from April 2025 to March 2028—we plan to finish and publish the 7th volume. This last volume is intended to conclude the Corpus Cosmatorum II. In it we discuss all the medieval Roman churches starting with the letter P (S. Pancrazio) through to the end of the alphabet (S. Zenone), with the exception of the two basilicas enshrining the tombs of Peter and Paul already treated in vol. 6. Among the monuments to be dealt with in vol. 7 of Corpus Cosmatorum II, we include important churches such as S. Prassede, SS. Quattro Coronati, S. Saba, S. Sebastiano fuori le mura, S. Stefano rotondo, SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio and, of course, the papal palace chapel known as the Sancta Sanctorum—one of the most splendid examples of marble and mosaic art of the later 13th century in Rome. About half of the contributions for this volume is written, others are in statu nascendi or still to be done. During this funding period we plan also the completion of the manuscript of the Synthesis volume Corpus Cosmatorum III.
The Corpus Cosmatorum project is foundational art historical research (“Grundlagenforschung”). With its focus on the high and late medieval building history of Roman churches it complements and updates Richard Krautheimer's "Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae" (5 vols., 1933–1977), which focused on the early Christian and early medieval period. As in the previous volumes of our Corpus, the main concerns are the architectural commissions carried out in the period between the 11th and the end of 13th century, with a special focus on the sculptural decoration (portals, wall tabernacles, Schola Cantorum, ciboria, ambos, thrones, Easter candelabra, tombs, etc.) and the opus sectile floors. Frescoes and mosaics are only of secondary interest; they are mentioned and bibliographically indexed, but not discussed in detail, as this topic is covered by the Corpus "La pittura medievale a Roma" curated by Serena Romano and Maria Andaloro. In short, this is not a history of art of the Roman Middle Ages based on its sacred buildings, rather one based on the careful recovery and reconstruction of their internal topography and layout, which, since the end of the 16th century, has been largely compromised. At the same time, the systematic study and reappraisal of individual churches represents an important contribution to the history of the sacred topography of the city of Rome during the Middle Ages. The short monographs of specific churches provide further information about the social groups influencing them. In a society in which signs and visible distinctions were important, each church played a specific role in the tensions between Rome’s factions—the Papacy, the Curia, the Roman nobility, the Commune, and religious communities. And by reflecting on the reception and restoration of the churches up to the present day, these "building biographies" are part of our own intellectual history.