The Churches of Rome in the Middle Ages (1050-1300). Liturgical Furnishing and Architecture (Corpus Cosmatorum II)
 

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The purpose of the platform DigCorpCos II is to present the results of the research project “Corpus Cosmatorum II”, which investigates the architecture and liturgical furnishings of 132 churches in Rome from the period between the 11th and the end of the 13th century. The focus of interest is the architectural history of sacred buildings and their sculptural liturgical furnishings (portals, wall tabernacles, scholae cantorum, ciboria, ambons, thrones and liturgical seats, Easter candelabra, tombs), as well as pavements made using the opus sectile technique. This significant artistic production can be attributed to distinct workshops of marble workers generically referred to as “Cosmati.” The research activity was initiated in 2002 by Prof. Peter Cornelius Claussen (University of Zurich). Following a hiatus (2010-2015) due to the retirement of the initiator, a collaboration was established between the Chairs of Medieval Art History at the Institute of History and Theory of Art and Architecture of the Università della Svizzera italiana (ISA USI, Prof. Dr. Daniela Mondini), and the Kunsthistorisches Institut of the University of Zurich (KHIST UZH, Prof. Dr. Carola Jäggi) with the aim of completing the catalogue of the churches of Rome in the Middle Ages by 2028. The results of the research — which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) — are published in the volumes “Die Kirchen der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter 1050-1300” Published by Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart. The volumes are available for download, as open-access e-books, on the publisher’s website and in the university repository ZORA (Zürich Open Repository and Archive).
High-resolution images can also be found on the national research data infrastructure Data and Service Center for the Humanities (DaSCH), Basel, Switzerland The platform DigCorpCos II, hosted by the USI, supplements the monographic presentation of the churches and their rich illustrative apparatus by facilitating the immediate identification of the buildings within the urban topographical context. To achieve this result, it was decided to use not only a contemporary georeferenced map but also a historical plan, the so-called 'Nolli map’. This map — created in the 18th century by the engineer, architect, engraver, and cartographer Giovanni Battista Nolli — offers an accurate view of the street network during the years between 1736 and 1748 and allows for the recognition of a large part of the urban layout prior to the radical transformations of the 19th and 20th centuries. The high quality of the cartographic work enables the identification of the plans and orientations of the ecclesiastical buildings under study. DigCorpCos II was conceived by Daniela Mondini and realized with funding for Open Science/Open Research Data (2023 call) from the Università della Svizzera italiana. Special thanks are owed to Leonardo Angelucci, Alberto Canepa, Carlo Andrea Schlatter for programming and graphic implementation, and to Giovanni Svevo (Mapping Historian), and Andrea Botta for setting up a preliminary model of the georeferenced map. A heartfelt thank you to Nicola Camerlenghi for his consultation and constructive criticism. Nora Ammann, Graziella Bozzini, Elisa Malnati, and Ramon Savoldelli contributed to the development of the content and its transfer to DaSCH.
Here is a brief overview of the project's contents.
The Corpus Cosmatorum project is conducting foundational art historical research (“Grundlagenforschung”). With its focus on the high medieval building history of Roman churches it complements and updates Richard Krautheimer's "Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae" (5 vols., 1933–1977), which focused on the early Christian and early medieval period.
This is not a history of art of the Roman Middle Ages based on its sacred buildings, rather one based on the careful recovery and reconstruction of their internal topography and layout, which, since the end of the 16th century, has been largely compromised. The polychromy of materials, the preference for precious marbles, and the splendor of golden mosaic tiles distinguished the aesthetics of medieval Roman sacred spaces from those common in Romanesque art throughout the rest of Europe. The revival of ancient architectural language and the reutilization of materials from Constantinian Rome appear to have been deliberately favored for the representation of the papacy at the height of its power.
At the same time, the systematic study and reappraisal of individual churches represents an important contribution to the history of the sacred topography of the city of Rome during the Middle Ages. The short monographs of specific churches provide further information about the social groups influencing their architecture and decoration. In a society in which signs and visible distinctions were important, each church played a specific role in the tensions between the single political factions of Rome —the Papacy, the Curia, the Roman nobility, the Commune, and religious communities. And by reflecting on the reception and restoration of the churches up to the present day, these "building biographies" are part of our own intellectual history.
Contacts: corpuscosmatorum@gmail.com