«Le Tre Marie» Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300
H18:30
H18:30
Free entry
The event will be held in Italian
Registration to follow online here
Presentation of the two volumes:
«Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300». Volume 5: S. Maria in Aracoeli, S. Maria Maggiore, S. Maria in Trastevere, edited by Daniela Mondini, Carola Jäggi and Peter Cornelius Claussen, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2025 (Corpus Cosmatorum II.5) with contributions by Peter Cornelius Claussen, Dale Kinney and Daniela Mondini
Peter Cornelius Claussen, Magistri Doctissimi Romani. Gli artisti marmorari romani del medioevo, Italian translation by Elisabetta Pastore and revision by Maddalena Libertini, Viella, Rome 2025
PROGRAMME:
Institutional greetings
Dr. Ilyas Azouzi (Head of Science, Research, and Innovation)
Introduction
Prof. Dr Daniela Mondini (Università della Svizzera italiana), Prof. Dr Carola Jäggi (Universität Zürich)
Speaker
Prof. Dr Sible de Blaauw (Radboud University Nijmegen)
The Three Maries
The protagonists of the fifth volume of the Corpus «Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050–1300», just published, are the three major Marian churches of Rome. Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline Hill is the oldest and largest among them. To this day, the structure of the 5th-century building is largely preserved. Since the Early Middle Ages, the cultic focal point has been the small shrine with the Nativity scene of Jesus and the miraculous icon of Mary, attributed to the Evangelist Luke. Santa Maria in Trastevere too has housed a miraculous icon and a Nativity scene since the Early Middle Ages, the latter modelled on that of Santa Maria Maggiore. Following its rebuilding from the 12th century onwards, the two churches also entered into competition in terms of architectural solutions.
The most recent of the three, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, owes its monumental construction on the Capitoline Hill to the Franciscans, who in the 13th century established the Roman headquarters of the Order in the structures of the former Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria in Capitolio. Since the 11th century, a Marian icon has also been attested here, which from 1348 – the year of the plague – became an important protective image for the people of Rome.
The contributions by Peter Cornelius Claussen, Dale Kinney and Daniela Mondini retrace the key moments in the architectural history and reconstruct the appearance of the splendid liturgical furnishings of the 12th and 13th centuries in these three Marian places of worship.
To the creators of these liturgical furnishings, the so-called “Magistri doctissimi romani”, Roman marble workers active in the 12th and 13th centuries, is dedicated the fundamental study by Peter Cornelius Claussen, the updated Italian translation of which will be presented on this occasion.
In collaboration with USI-Accademia di Architettura
Peter Cornelius Claussen is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Art History at the University of Zurich and the creator of the Corpus Cosmatorum collection. A multifaceted art historian and former professor at the University of Frankfurt, his research ranges from goldsmithing to Gothic sculpture and architecture, and from medieval artists‘ signatures to art and psychiatry. He has also worked on the art of the Hohenstaufen period and on the reception of the Middle Ages in modern times. Among his many publications on medieval art in Rome are numerous essays, as well as his book Magistri doctissimi romani, 1987 (Italian edition Viella 2025), which inaugurated the Corpus Cosmatorum, followed by the first four volumes of Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter (2002–2020), to which the present volume is now added.
Sible de Blaauw is Professor Emeritus of Early Christian Art and Architecture at Radboud University in Nijmegen (Netherlands). He is co-editor of the Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum and a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur in Mainz. After studying History with a focus on the Middle Ages at the University of Groningen, he earned his PhD at the University of Leiden in 1987 with a study on architecture and liturgy in the major Early Christian churches of Rome. From 1994 to 2001 he served as deputy director of the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, and from 2002 to 2016 he taught at Radboud University. His research focuses on the material and artistic history of Christian Rome, the interaction between architecture and liturgy, the reception history of Early Christian monuments, and the religious heritage of the Netherlands.
Carola Jäggi holds the Chair of Medieval Art History, Early Christian, Early and Late Medieval Archaeology at the University of Zurich. She is a specialist in medieval sacred architecture, including liturgical furnishings, which she explores through systematic research, for example on various phenomena of reuse or on the sacrality of places and objects. Her publications cover a wide range of topics, from Late Antique urbanism to the image debate during the Reformation; Italy and Rome play a significant role in her work, as do Byzantium and Central Europe. Since 2015, she has co-led, together with Daniela Mondini, the project to continue the Corpus Cosmatorum, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
Daniela Mondini is Professor of Art and Architectural History at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio (Università della Svizzera italiana). Her studies focus primarily on medieval Rome, on light and darkness in architecture, on art historiography, and on the history of photography. From 2002 to 2010 she collaborated with Darko Senekovic on the second and third volumes of Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, directed by Peter Cornelius Claussen, and since 2015 she has co-directed, together with Carola Jäggi, the international research group for the continuation of the Corpus Cosmatorum, with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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S. Maria in Aracoeli, monumento funerario del senatore Luca Savelli (Foto Mondini BY-NC-SA 4.0)