The Liber Pontificalis (LP) was first compiled from earlier lives of the Roman pontiffs in the early sixth century with the purpose of legitimizing the disputed reign of Pope Symmachus (d. 514). It was extended soon after in the same century and maintained as a chronicle of the reigns of the popes until Stephen V (r. 885-891). The current volume of the Papers of the Netherlands Institute presents the reader with up-to-the-moment research on many of the vexing technical difficulties of the text, its transmission, its meaning, and its context. This volume contains work by most of the leading experts on the LP, all articles are in Italian. The Liber Pontificalis is an important source for historians from Late Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages, from Constantine to Charlemagne. It is an essential source for the emergence of the papacy, for early art and architectural history, and for the transformation of the city from ancient capital to central medieval religious and political icon. The importance of the source gives these articles a significance greater than their immediate scope. The articles are organized in a roughly chronological manner, though it concludes with a textual discussion of the earliest sources and lives. One could quibble with the usefulness of that organization, but it might be more helpful to supplement the reader's approach to the volume by reorganizing the material more thematically and comparatively in the course of this review and so I begin at the conclusion.
The last three articles take up the question of the origins and makeup of the LP. Patrizia Carmassi's, "La prima redazione del Liber Pontificalis nel quadro delle fonti contemporanee. Osservazioni in margine alla vita di Simmaco," (pp. 235-66) addresses the question of the origin of the LP within the context of the Symmachus controversy. The author of the first phase of the LP clearly sought to minimize papal scandal, not only for Symmachus, but also for his predecessors, importing materials most likely known at first hand. The text shows evidence of an official conclusion to the years of crisis (p. 254). The volume ends with two studies of the earliest edition of the LP by Herman Geertman, "Documenti, redattori e la formazione del testo del Liber Pontificalis," (pp. 267-84) identifies three classes of manuscripts revealing three phases of their redaction. He presents comparisons of the lives of Sylvester (r. 314-337), Hormisdas (r. 514-523), and John (r. 523-526). He reconsiders, thereby, the texts that ought to form the basis of a critical edition, revealing a more loquacious epitome of the LP than that of Duchesne and Mommsen. This is elaborated in Geertman's "Le biografie del Liber Pontififcalis dal 311 al 535. Testo e commentario," (pp. 285-355). Future studies of these earliest and important lives will have to consult this edition. Geertman also provides a close study of the corruption of texts within the life of Hadrian I (r. 772-795), "Gli spostamenti di testo nella vita di Adriano I," (pp. 155-66).
From the manuscripts we move to the words it contains and five articles take up thorny questions of the contemporary meanings of specific terms in the LP. Federico Guidobaldi's, "La fondazione delle basiliche titolari di Roma nel IV e V secolo. Assenze e presenze ne Liber Pontificalis," (pp. 5-12) deals with the nature of the titulus, apparently a creation of the late fourth and early fifth century and applied at that time to the earlier period. The titulus might initially have borne the name of its donor which might in turn become the name of its primary church, as with S. Marco, or it might take on the name of its primary church. Without a major church, however, a titulus might go unnoted (p. 11).
Likewise confronting a technical term relevant to the organization of ecclesiastical holdings is Federico Marazzi's, "Il Liber Pontificalis el fondazione delle Domuscultae," (pp. 167-88). The term first appears in 93.19 (not 18 as on p. 167), in the pontificate of Zacharias (r. 741- 752). Marazzi argues convincingly that the domuscultae are better understood as an effort to reorganize agricultural production in the second half of the eighth century than as a military effort to organize a defense of the countryside.
Three of these articles focused terminology consider problems of architecture. Paolo Liverani's, "Camerae e coperture delle basiliche paleocristianae," (pp. 13-28) concludes that the term camera typically refers to a closed ceiling but might refer to an open ceiling.
This is further expounded by Sible de Blauuw's article on the full variety of terminology used in reference to the apse, "L'abside nella terminologia architettonica del Liber Pontificalis," (pp. 105-14). (It ought to be noted for students of early Rome that de Blauuw's earlier studies are often borne out in greater detail by these articles). He finds absida used quite consistently for the apse and its vault in the LP (p. 111) not camera. Anglophone student's who consult the Raymond Davis's translations (Liverpool University Press) need to be aware of this.
Geertman considers the meaning of the Lateran fastigium in his, "Il fastigium lateranense e l'arredo presbiteriale. Una lunga storia," (pp. 29-43). This was a linear and ornate structure supporting statuary and separating the presbytery from the nave in the Constantinian basilica of John Lateran. Geertman argues that it remained in place and largely intact until the second half of the ninth century.
This takes us to questions of church ornament in the eighth and ninth centuries. "Immagine e immagini ne Liber Pontificalis da Adriano I a Pasquale I," (pp. 45-103) is Maria Andaloro's examination of the motifs represented on liturgical vestments. This provides several tables of great help in comparing different pontifical interests as presented through their donations of liturgical vestments. The article ends with a long table, "Schedatura dei tessuti con motivi figurativi di Adriano 1, Leone III, Pasquale I," (pp. 67-96), edited by Giulia Bordi and Stefania Pennesi. The manufacture of the vestments and their representations is also described.
Carlo Pavolini addresses church lighting with, "L'illuminazione delle basiliche: Il Liber Pontificalis e la cultura materiale," (pp. 115-34). With a crisis in oil production in the late fifth/ early sixth century oil lamps were used less and appear to be reserved for the presbytery, the nave being illuminated by candles.
A final category within the volume is the urban fabric of the city. Most interesting are the efforts of Robert Coates-Stephens, "Gli impianti acqua e la rete idrica urbana," (pp. 135-54). The foldout map attached to p. 135 showing routes for the acqueducts and their relation to baptistries and wells is one of the many diagnostic tools that makes this volume so worthwhile. It is the absence of Byzantine administrative authority that appears to require Hadrian I's extensive work on the aqueducts. A rather vibrant vision of the city results, its infrastructure damaged, but less than one might have imagined from the Gothic Wars onward. One wishes that this article was more engaged by Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani, "Il paesaggio urbano alto medievale nei testi del Liber Pontificalis," (pp. 225-34). This article considers the shifting abitato and disabitato in the medieval city. The population moves from a center on the Caelian in the sixth and seventh centuries to the area of the Via Lata and the bend in the Tiber in the eighth and ninth centuries. The restoration of this period suggests both this shift and an awareness of the city as being now a semi-rural place. Coates-Stephens' article suggests the maintenance of aqueducts, wells, and baptistries well outside of this area of primary habitation.
Donatella Bellardini and Paolo Delogu examine the codex Einsidlense 326 copied in the second half of the ninth century and containing an itinerary of Rome, "Liber Pontificalis e altre fonti: la topografia di Roma nell'VIII secolo," (pp. 205-24). The dating of the itinerary itself is, of course, problematic, but appears to have two phases in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The topography presented is decidedly papal even within the category of ecclesiastical with some sense of the ancient city, a combination of particular symbolic import.
The wide range of scholars who draw on the LP will find much of use here in terms of better texts, precise discussions of long debated problems, bibliography, and valuable analytical tables. Older editions and translations of the LP need to be consulted with this volume in hand. The myriad of telling details and small arguments that point to broader significance that this volume contains makes one wish that the articles were written with a keener eye towards the other articles in the volume, or that an index of the articles was provided.