Rome in the Tenth Century: A History of Art. By JohnOsborne. Cambridge University Press and the British School at Rome, 2025. xvi + 211 pp. £90.

Rome in the tenth century, and especially the papacy at that period, has always had a bad press. The ultimate source for this came from the damning comments of the contemporary chronicler Liudprand of Cremona, who wrote that the Lateran Palace (the popes’ main residence) was ‘once a shelter of the saints, and now a brothel for prostitutes’, and also that the city's churches had been allowed to deteriorate to such an extent that rain fell in torrents on the altars. Yet, Liudprand was hardly an impartial witness, for he was seeking to justify the unprecedented interference of his patron, the German Emperor Otto I, in Roman and papal affairs. Indeed, as John Osborne points out, the first half of the tenth century, during which the ‘duke and senator’ Theophylact and his descendants ruled Rome, until the death of his grandson Alberic in 954, was probably the longest period of domestic peace that the city enjoyed during the Middle Ages. Furthermore, the destruction of the Arab colony at the mouth of the Garigliano in 915, and the consequent cessation of plundering raids into the Roman Campagna, led to a resettlement of the region and an expansion of prosperity, and during the 930s, Odo of Cluny reformed several of Rome's monasteries. This final volume of Osborne's trilogy on the material culture of early medieval Rome is not therefore simply a study of decline and decadence. But, compared with the two previous volumes covering the eighth and ninth centuries, it is undoubtedly problematic. There are no substantial remains on the scale of, for example, Paschal I's reconstruction of S. Prassede in the early ninth century. Almost all tenth-century church architecture, and much of its art work, has been obliterated by subsequent rebuilding. Above all, the writing of the Liber Pontificalis, that invaluable source for the religious and artistic patronage of the popes, ceased with the pontificate of Stephen V (885–91). The sparse entries for subsequent popes in later manuscripts of that book were written in the first years of the twelfth century, and indeed comprise little more than a list of pontiffs, and how long they reigned. Hence, Osborne has had to reconstruct the story of artistic patronage and endeavour in tenth-century Rome from a meticulous examination of scattered pieces of sculpture, other fragmentary survivals such as inscriptions, seventeenth-century copies of now lost or damaged frescoes, recent archaeology and those few works that remain extant, such as the frescoes from the atrium of S. Maria Antiqua (which seems to have been converted into a monastery during this period), S. Maria in Pallara and San Sabas. None of these frescoes are complete or in good condition, and all have deteriorated considerably since they were rediscovered early in the last century. Nor, in many cases, is the dating of such survivals very certain – although as Osborne shows techniques of dating fresco, for example, have advanced considerably in recent years, and some artistic remains that had once been ascribed to earlier periods are now believed to belong to the tenth century. But much of this is probable, rather than certain. Most problematic, in the opinion of this reviewer, is the surviving, and much-restored, mosaic panel that may have been associated with the tomb of Emperor Otto II, buried in St. Peter's in 983 (the tomb itself was dismantled in the seventeenth-century). Such an image, of Christ giving a blessing, was mentioned by Thietmar of Merseburg, writing about thirty years later. Yet, the Montecassino chronicler Leo (who knew Rome well), writing just after 1100, said that his abbot, Desiderius, who rebuilt the monastery in the 1060s, had reintroduced the art of mosaic to Italy, after it had been lost ‘for five hundred years’, by employing Byzantine craftsmen. The time-frame was much exaggerated, but we have no other evidence of mosaic work, either in Rome, or elsewhere in central and southern Italy, since the time of Paschal I, 250 years earlier. Notwithstanding such caveats, Osborne makes a clear and convincing case for a flourishing material and religious culture in tenth-century Rome. But this was, for almost the only time in the city's history, not the result of papal patronage. Indeed, after the rebuilding of the Lateran by Sergius III (904–11), to repair serious earthquake damage, we have no evidence at all for such papal activity. Nor would the generally very brief pontificates of the period have been conducive for such patronage – there were no less than twenty-six popes holding office over the course of the century. Their role was, however, taken over by lay patrons, not least the much-maligned family of Theophylact. New monastic foundations continued into the later part of the century, for example, S. Maria in Pallara, funded by a Peter the doctor (who died before 999), and SS. Bonifacio e Alessio, by a group of refugee monks from Syria in 977. Who worked on these projects is also mysterious, although a surviving inscription from San Saba identifies a Martin, monk and magister, which may suggest that the expertise for such work came from within religious communities, rather than from teams of professional craftsmen as had been the case a century or more earlier. Osborne's analysis inevitably concentrates on religious culture, although, as he points out, recent archaeology has also revealed considerable evidence of domestic housing construction in this period, especially in the Forum area. This reinforces the argument that tenth-century Rome was hardly a society in decline, but rather a developing and dynamic one. And all future students of medieval Rome will benefit from reading this admirable book, which is not just rigorous in its scholarly method, and with copious and well-chosen illustrations, but also clearly written and approachable, and a worthy conclusion to a long and distinguished career devoted to the culture of early medieval Rome.