



		Preface Including W3909y course syllabus, rationale, and evaluation

		Library A compendium of texts and links relating to the study of Medieval Rome

		Visual Resources Image portfolios organized in chronological, thematic, and/or media specific groupings





		Columbia University

		Department of Art History and Archaeology

		Media Center for Art History, Archaeology & Historic Preservation

		Columbia Interactive

[W3909y] Rome, ca. 300–1300, Professor Holger Klein

As the capital of the Roman Empire, home to the popes, and final resting place of a multitude of pious saints and martyrs, the city of Rome presents us with an unique and multilayered history. Spanning about a millennium from the time of the first ‘Christian’ emperor Constantine the Great to the creation of the first Jubilee Year in 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII, this undergraduate seminar will serve as an introduction to the most important monuments of Rome’s Early Christian and Medieval past and explore the social, political, and artistic context from which they emerged. Emphasis will be placed on the role Imperial Roman art played in the formation and establishment of the Christian artistic tradition, the emergence of Rome as the city of the popes and most important center of Christianity in Western Europe, and the rise of the cult of saints, their relics, and images in the Early Middle-Ages. Themes of the seminar will further include the meaning of architectural symbolism, the relation between architecture and liturgy, the relevance of pictorial narrative in the monumental decoration of churches, and the role of icons in civic life.

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