In this rich and wide-ranging monograph, Joanna Story examines a monumental verse epitaph commemorating the life and virtues of Pope Hadrian I (d. 795). Comprising forty lines of Latin verse, this poem was commissioned by Charlemagne shortly after Hadrian’s death, inscribed by skilled stone cutters on black limestone quarried near Aachen, and shipped to Rome for display over the late pope’s tomb, where it expressed “through word, stone, and script, a message of Carolingian confidence and ambition to the Roman elites who saw it” (4). Story’s approach is panoptic. Over the course of eight chapters, she investigates Hadrian’s epitaph from many different angles: textual, material, and political. In doing so, she gives voice to the expressive power of this multivalent source, which served simultaneously as a funerary lament and a statement of royal propaganda, while also highlighting the artisanal skill and material opulence of the Carolingian court responsible for its production.
The book opens with a facing-page edition and translation of Hadrian I’s epitaph by David R. Howlett (xxii-xxiii), which prefaces an introduction that builds the context for the pope’s death, the contested early years of his successor Leo III (r. 795-816), and the history of Carolingian political aspirations in eighth-century Rome. The scene then shifts rather abruptly to the Renaissance in Chapter 1, where Story offers an attenuated history of early modern sources for the relocation and placement of Hadrian I’s epitaph during the extensive renovations of Old St. Peter’s between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. While not without interest, this long chapter would have served readers better as an epilogue in a book that is primarily about Carolingian history. Chapter 2 returns to the eighth century for a summary of the life and career of Hadrian I, who is known primarily from his letters (many of which were preserved in Frankish manuscripts), from the account of his virtues in the Liber pontificalis, and from his coins, which Story notes were “the first true papal issues and a statement of independence since they were minted in the name of the pope without reference to the emperor in Constantinople” (87). The epitaph echoed many of the sentiments about the pope’s merits expressed in the Liber pontificalis, which suggests that a unified message about Hadrian I’s legacy extended from Rome to the Carolingian heartlands. His death was keenly felt by Charlemagne, who spread news of his passing and orchestrated rites of mourning in the Frankish kingdom. It was in this context that the king commissioned the composition, construction, and transportation of this monumental poem as a public memorial for his late friend and a political expression of his close relationship with the pontiffs of Rome.
Chapter 3 focuses on the form and content of the epitaph itself. The poem comprises forty lines consisting of nineteen distiches followed by two lines of prose, which provide the length of Hadrian I’s office and the day of his death. It has a tripartite structure with each section addressing a specific topic in a particular voice. The first part (lines 1-16) narrates the merits of the pope in the third person. The second part (lines 17-24) adopts the first-person voice of Charlemagne, who petitions Hadrian I to act as his intercessor in Heaven. The third part (lines 25-40) addresses readers of the epitaph directly in the second person and solicits their prayers for Charlemagne and the pope. Although the author remains unnamed, scholars are confident that Alcuin composed these verses, which bear similarities in diction and syntax to his surviving poetry. The text of the epitaph also circulated in a handful of manuscripts, where it was copied among late antique Christian poems, as part of Alcuin’s collected works, and as an addendum to the Liber Pontificalis.
The next two chapters broaden the scope of the inquiry to consider Hadrian I’s epitaph in the wider context of monumental Latin inscriptions in Rome. Story stresses that the poem’s audience was much broader than the viewers who saw it in situ at the pope’s tomb. Chapter 4 examines manuscript florilegia of Roman verse inscriptions (syllogae) made in England and northern Europe from the seventh century onwards, with attention to a short anthology of Roman tituli that includes the epitaph preserved in two Carolingian manuscripts from Reims. Chapter 5 provides an evaluation of the material production of the memorial, including its script, layout, and decoration. Inscriptions that survive from early medieval Rome do not compare with the expert execution and high-quality materials that distinguish the pope’s epitaph.
One of the most striking features of the inscription is the black limestone on which it was carved. Chapter 6 marshals the evidence to show that this stone was quarried near Aachen, rendered into a memorial object by skilled artisans working at Charlemagne’s court, and then transported to Rome, most likely in the context of Angilbert’s diplomatic mission in 796 to witness Pope Leo III’s oath of loyalty. As Chapter 7 shows, the concentration of artisanal talent at Aachen in the last decades of the eighth century bolsters the argument that specialized workers involved in the construction of the royal palace and chapel complex played a role in fashioning the pope’s epitaph. As numerous examples demonstrate, “texts, manuscripts, architecture, and applied arts (in paint, metal, stone, and ivory) attest to the concentration of talent and technology as well as human and material resources in Charlemagne’s kingdom” (308). Chapter 8 underscores the political purpose of the great king’s monumental gesture. Charlemagne’s motives for commissioning the epitaph were more than personal. He was keen to construct and control the memory of Hadrian I in Rome and to make himself central to the late pope’s commemoration. The book then ends rather abruptly without a conclusion.
Charlemagne and Rome takes a seemingly modest source--a forty-line poem composed around 796--and builds a contextual superstructure around it to highlight the virtuosity of the poet, the skill of the artisans who constructed the material frame for his verses, the cultural achievements of Charlemagne’s court where the epitaph was executed, and the political potential of monumental verse for the king’s ambitions in Italy. Readers may sometimes feel overwhelmed by the wealth of comparative material that Story brings to bear to make her arguments. I would have appreciated more signposting in a book that ricochets between topics as diverse as Carolingian poetry, manuscript studies, travel literature, epigraphy, and limestone quarries. A formal conclusion summarizing the author’s findings would have been a welcome addition as well. None of this detracts from Story’s achievement, however. Her mastery of the diverse textual and material sources examined inCharlemagne and Rome is truly impressive. Her book is a testimony to the fact that the reign of a medieval ruler as well-studied as Charlemagne still has secrets to share.