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I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History
Reviving the Eternal City: Rome and the Papal Court, 1420-1447
In 1420, after more than one hundred years of the Avignon Exile and the Western Schism, the papal court returned to Rome, which had become depopulated, dangerous, and impoverished in the papacy's absence. Reviving the Eternal City examines the culture of Rome and the papal court during the first half of the fifteenth century, a crucial transitional period before the city's rebirth. As Elizabeth McCahill explains, during these decades Rome and the Curia were caught between conflicting realities--between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, between conciliarism and papalism, between an image of Rome as a restored republic and a dream of the city as a papal capital.
Through the testimony of humanists' rhetorical texts and surviving archival materials, McCahill reconstructs the niche that scholars carved for themselves as they penned vivid descriptions of Rome and offered remedies for contemporary social, economic, religious, and political problems. In addition to analyzing the humanists' intellectual and professional program, McCahill investigates the different agendas that popes Martin V (1417-1431) and Eugenius IV (1431-1447) and their cardinals had for the post-Schism pontificate. Reviving the Eternal City illuminates an urban environment in transition and explores the ways in which curialists collaborated and competed to develop Rome's ancient legacy into a potent cultural myth.
Through the testimony of humanists' rhetorical texts and surviving archival materials, McCahill reconstructs the niche that scholars carved for themselves as they penned vivid descriptions of Rome and offered remedies for contemporary social, economic, religious, and political problems. In addition to analyzing the humanists' intellectual and professional program, McCahill investigates the different agendas that popes Martin V (1417-1431) and Eugenius IV (1431-1447) and their cardinals had for the post-Schism pontificate. Reviving the Eternal City illuminates an urban environment in transition and explores the ways in which curialists collaborated and competed to develop Rome's ancient legacy into a potent cultural myth.
- GenresItaly
302 pages, Hardcover
First published October 14, 2013
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June 28, 2020
I think the fact that it took me just shy of a year to get through this 200-page book sums up my feelings towards it pretty well.
My biggest problem is that I feel slightly duped by the title. While the book definitely looks at the return of the papacy to Rome and the general feelings of the curia during that time, I feel like this would have been better marketed as an essay on the clash between humanism and religion in the papal court, because that took up a significant portion of the book. Very little, I felt, was devoted to the actions taken by Martin V and Eugenius IV (except in the last chapter, which focused on the power of ceremony during Eugenius's reign). Most of the book focused on the writings of just one or two curial humanists and made some rather assumptive extrapolations based on those. Granted, I know materials from that time are few, but that does not excuse applying generalizations with limited information. The writing itself is definitely academic, as expected, but the author overdoes it, as if she's trying to gain credibility by filling run-on sentences with wordy verbiage. For me, it felt like she was trying too hard, and it made the reading itself feel disjointed.
If you're looking for a book that looks at the impact of humanism on a religiously entrenched institution, by all means, pick this book up. But if you are more interested in the actions taken by the papacy to restore authority and power to Rome...maybe skip it.
My biggest problem is that I feel slightly duped by the title. While the book definitely looks at the return of the papacy to Rome and the general feelings of the curia during that time, I feel like this would have been better marketed as an essay on the clash between humanism and religion in the papal court, because that took up a significant portion of the book. Very little, I felt, was devoted to the actions taken by Martin V and Eugenius IV (except in the last chapter, which focused on the power of ceremony during Eugenius's reign). Most of the book focused on the writings of just one or two curial humanists and made some rather assumptive extrapolations based on those. Granted, I know materials from that time are few, but that does not excuse applying generalizations with limited information. The writing itself is definitely academic, as expected, but the author overdoes it, as if she's trying to gain credibility by filling run-on sentences with wordy verbiage. For me, it felt like she was trying too hard, and it made the reading itself feel disjointed.
If you're looking for a book that looks at the impact of humanism on a religiously entrenched institution, by all means, pick this book up. But if you are more interested in the actions taken by the papacy to restore authority and power to Rome...maybe skip it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review