A narrative of decline punctuated by periods of renewal has long structured perceptions of Rome’s late antique and medieval history. In their probing contributions to this volume, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars provides alternative approaches to understanding the period. Addressing developments in governance, ceremony, literature, art, music, clerical education and the construction of the city’s identity, the essays examine how a variety of actors, from poets to popes, productively addressed the intermittent crises and shifting dynamics of these centuries in ways that bolstered the city’s resilience. Without denying that the past (both pre-Christian and Christian) consistently remained a powerful touchstone, the studies in this volume offer rich new insights into the myriad ways that Romans, between the fifth and the eleventh centuries, creatively assimilated the past as they shaped their future.

Gregor Kalas is Associate Professor of Architectural History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he is the Riggsby Director of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. He is the author of The Restoration of the Roman Forum in Late Antiquity: Transforming Public Space (2015).

Ann van Dijk is Associate Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Design at Northern Illinois University. Her publications examine the patronage of Pope John VII as well as its reception in the early modern period. Her articles have appeared in The Art Bulletin, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Word & Image, and Renaissance Studies.

Preface and Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Revising the Narrative of Renewal for Late Antique and Medieval Rome (GREGOR KALAS and ANN VAN DIJK)
2. Rome at War: The Effects of Crisis on Church and Community in Late Antiquity (KRISTINA SESSA)
3. Portraits of Poets and the Lecture Halls in the Forum of Trajan: The Masked Cultural Tensions of Late Antique Rome (GREGOR KALAS)
4. Rolling Out the Red Carpet, Roman Style: The Arrival at Rome from Constantine to Charlemagne (JACOB LATHAM)
5. (Re)founding Christian Rome: The Honorian Project in the Early Seventh Century (DENNIS TROUT)
6. After Antiquity: Renewing the Past or Celebrating the Present? Early Medieval Apse Mosaics in Rome (ERIK THUNØ)
7. The Re-Invention of Rome in the Early Middle Ages (JOHN OSBORNE)
8. Rewriting the Renouveau (DALE KINNEY)
9. Renewal, Heritage, and Exchange in Eleventh-Century Roman Chant Traditions (LUISA NARDINI)
10. Reforming Readers, Reforming Texts: The Making of a Discursive Community in Gregorian Rome (WILLIAM NORTH)
Index