Rome And The Guidebook Tradition

To this day, no comprehensive academic study of the development of guidebooks to Rome over time has been performed. This book treats the history of guidebooks to Rome from the Middle Ages up to the early twentieth century. It is based on the results of the interdisciplinary research project Topos and Topography, led by Anna Blennow and Stefano Fogelberg Rota. From the case studies performed within the project, it becomes evident that the guidebook as a phenomenon was formed in Rome during the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The elements and rhetorical strategies of guidebooks over time have shown to be surprisingly uniform, with three important points of development: a turn towards a more user-friendly structure from the seventeenth century and onward; the so-called ’Baedeker effect’ in the mid-nineteenth century; and the introduction of a personalized guiding voice in the first half of the twentieth century. Thus, the ‘guidebook tradition’ is an unusually consistent literary oeuvre, which also forms a warranty for the authority of every new guidebook. In this respect, the guidebook tradition is intimately associated with the city of Rome, with which it shares a constantly renovating yet eternally fixed nature.

To this day, no comprehensive academic study of the development of guidebooks to Rome over time has been performed. This book treats the history of guidebooks to Rome from the Middle Ages up to the early twentieth century. It is based on the results of the interdisciplinary research project Topos and Topography, led by Anna Blennow and Stefano Fogelberg Rota. From the case studies performed within the project, it becomes evident that the guidebook as a phenomenon was formed in Rome during the later Middle Ages and early Renaissance. The elements and rhetorical strategies of guidebooks over time have shown to be surprisingly uniform, with three important points of development: a turn towards a more user-friendly structure from the seventeenth century and onward; the so-called ’Baedeker effect’ in the mid-nineteenth century; and the introduction of a personalized guiding voice in the first half of the twentieth century. Thus, the ‘guidebook tradition’ is an unusually consistent literary oeuvre, which also forms a warranty for the authority of every new guidebook. In this respect, the guidebook tradition is intimately associated with the city of Rome, with which it shares a constantly renovating yet eternally fixed nature.

The World of Rome is an introduction to the history and culture of Rome for students at university and at school as well as for anyone seriously interested in the ancient world. Drawing on the latest scholarship, it covers all aspects of the city - its rise to power, what made it great, and why it still engages and challenges us today. The first two chapters outline the history and changing identity of Rome from 1000 BC to AD 476. Subsequent chapters examine the mechanisms of government, the economic and social life of Rome, and Roman ways of looking at and reflecting the world. Frequent quotations from ancient writers and numerous illustrations make this a stimulating and accessible introduction to ancient Rome. The World of Rome is particularly designed to serve as a background book to Reading Latin (Cambridge University Press, 1986).

The legacy of ancient Greece and Rome has been imitated, resisted, misunderstood, and reworked by every culture that followed. In this volume, some five hundred articles by a wide range of scholars investigate the afterlife of this rich heritage in the fields of literature, philosophy, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and science.

A new investigation that shows how conversionary preaching to Jews was essential to the early modern Catholic Church and the Roman religious landscape Starting in the sixteenth century, Jews in Rome were forced, every Saturday, to attend a hostile sermon aimed at their conversion. Harshly policed, they were made to march en masse toward the sermon and sit through it, all the while scrutinized by local Christians, foreign visitors, and potential converts. In Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews, Emily Michelson demonstrates how this display was vital to the development of early modern Catholicism. Drawing from a trove of overlooked manuscripts, Michelson reconstructs the dynamics of weekly forced preaching in Rome. As the Catholic Church began to embark on worldwide missions, sermons to Jews offered a unique opportunity to define and defend its new triumphalist, global outlook. They became a point of prestige in Rome. The city’s most important organizations invested in maintaining these spectacles, and foreign tourists eagerly attended them. The title of “Preacher to the Jews” could make a man’s career. The presence of Christian spectators, Roman and foreign, was integral to these sermons, and preachers played to the gallery. Conversionary sermons also provided an intellectual veneer to mask ongoing anti-Jewish aggressions. In response, Jews mounted a campaign of resistance, using any means available. Examining the history and content of sermons to Jews over two and a half centuries, Catholic Spectacle and Rome’s Jews argues that conversionary preaching to Jews played a fundamental role in forming early modern Catholic identity.

What was a Roman book? How did it differ from modern books? How were Roman books composed, published and distributed during the high period of Roman literature that encompassed, among others, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Martial, Pliny and Tacitus? What was the ‘scribal art’ of the time? What was the role of bookshops and libraries? The publishing of Roman books has often been misrepresented by false analogies with contemporary publishing. This wide-ranging study re-examines, by appeal to what Roman authors themselves tell us, both the raw material and the aesthetic criteria of the Roman book, and shows how slavery was the ‘enabling infrastructure’ of literature. Roman publishing is placed firmly in the context of a society where the spoken still ranked above the written, helping to explain how some books and authors became politically dangerous and how the Roman book could be both an elite cultural icon and a contributor to Rome’s popular culture through the mass medium of the theatre.

This book reconsiders the question of Martin Luther's relationship with Rome in all its sixteenth-century manifestations: the early-modern city he visited as a young man, the ancient republic and empire whose language and literature he loved, the Holy Roman Empire of which he was a subject, and the sacred seat of the papacy. It will appeal to scholars as well as lay readers, especially those interested in Rome, the reception of the classics in the Reformation, Luther studies, and early-modern history. Springer's methodology is primarily literary-critical, and he analyzes a variety of texts--prose and poetry--throughout the book. Some of these speak for themselves, while Springer examines others more closely to tease out their possible meanings. The author also situates relevant texts within their appropriate contexts, as the topics in the book are interdisciplinary. While many of Luther's references to Rome are negative, especially in his later writings, Springer argues that his attitude to the city in general was more complicated than has often been supposed. If Rome had not once been so dear to Luther, it is unlikely that his later animosity would have been so intense. Springer shows that Luther continued to be deeply fascinated by Rome until the end of his life and contends that what is often thought of as his pure hatred of Rome is better analyzed as a kind of love-hate relationship with the venerable city.