02 Lecture: From Constantine’s Rome to the Leonine City

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From Constantine to Leo III by way of Gregory I

Population:  A fraction of its former size. Why?

• Pandemic: Plague (Black Death) 540s
• No longer a capital; end of senate   6^th c
•  State, public buildings not needed

Example: Crypta Balbi area

So who does continue to live in the city?

• Local business and tradespeople
• The wealthy:  big landowners
• Some administrators from Byzantium before ca 700
• Poor people
• Clerics

 

Landowners

• Ancient: villa, farm manager, slaves or coloni; commodity agriculture; owners in cities
• 312+ pious donations to churches
•  680s: spread of Islam: estates in N. Africa lost
• Rented:  emphyteusis

Gregory I b. ca 540; 590-604

• Rome a duchy under exarch of Ravenna
• Lombards: a relatively new presence
• violence in countryside
• Gregory and other popes assume tasks Byzantines lack staff to perform
• More social welfare tasks

Rome’s urban space

Housing: clustered

Forum area: much less reason to use it

Comparison: modern Detroit

New construction: Churches

•    old “community centers”   replaced by churches
•  Santa Sabina;  Santa Maria Maggiore; many churches outside city walls
• Conversion of some Roman governmental buildings to churches
  • Ex:    Cosmas and Damian
  • Pantheon 609
• Diaconiae: welfare centers. Documented from 680s (Santa Maria in Cosmedin originally diaconia)

Krautheimer map Constantine

Krautheimer map Gregory I

Carolingian era

New construction:   Santa Prassede, Zeno Chapel

 

Papal and city administrative center: St John Lateran

Triclinium of Leo III reconstructed apse

view early 17th c showing older appearance of square

St. Peter’s: major center for pilgrims

New walls (848-52) named for Leo IV