Excerpt from Chapter 2: Rome
Cosmatesque Site par Excellence

Of the sixty-eight cities that have Cosmatesque ornament, sixty-two form a cluster in central Italy. Three of the six remaining cities are in Tuscany, two in Campania, and one in England. The principal focal point of Cosmatesque ornament, central Italy, thus is home to 91 percent of the Cosmatesque cities. The sixty-two cities of central Italy contain 183 Cosmatesque monuments (see chapter 1 for a list of these cities and monuments); 85 of these lie within the capital city of Rome (fig. 2-1).¹ Hence, Rome contains 46 percent of the monuments of the principal Cosmatesque nucleus (fig. 2-2). Moreover, the Cosmatesque monuments in Rome are the most important, as much for their dimensions as for their quality of design and execution. Rome is, without doubt, the Cosmatesque site par excellence, and for that reason warrants special attention in any research on the work of the Cosmati. The irrefutable importance of Rome as a Cosmatesque site has led me to dedicate a substantial part of this book to the detailed study of the Cosmatesque monuments in that city and to leave for another occasion a comparable study of the other Cosmatesque monuments.

Included among the Cosmatesque monuments of Rome are those that constitute genuine Cosmatesque production, that is, the collection of works produced by Roman artists during the period from the Papacy of Gregory VII (1073–85) to the Papacy of Honorius III (1216–27).² Also included are those monuments that display undeniably Cosmatesque traits, although they were executed after the thirteenth century. Some of these 'late-Cosmatesque" monuments were fabricated in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (for example, the pavements of the Cappella Sistina, Tempietto di Bramante, Appartamento Borgia, Stanze di Raffaello, the room of Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere in Santi Apostoli). Others , which I call 'neo-Cosmatesque," appeared in the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries (for example, Chiesa dell'Addolorata, San Giuseppe, Santa Croce, Sacro Cuore del Suffragio, Madonna del Rosario). The latter, referred to by A. M. Bessone-Aurelj as 'modern imitations," are the products of the eclectic art of the nineteenth century.³ The Cosmatesque revival that occurred in Rome during that period was one of the many 'revivals," including the Classic Revival and Gothic Revival, that took place in Europe at that time.

Rome in the Late Middle Ages

A constant struggle for power among the pope, the emperor, and the local aristocracy dominated life in medieval Rome.⁴ At the end of the eleventh century and throughout the twelfth century, during the time of the Cosmati, the conflict between the emperor and the pope reached a climax, as evidenced by the Controversy of the Investitures (1075–1177), which was partially resolved by the Concordat of Worms (1122), the agreement that laid the foundation for recognition of the pope as the supreme spiritual as well as temporal authority. In about the year 1130, the Papacy saw the emperor subordinated to the pope, when it was accepted that the pope conceded temporal power to the emperor through the act of coronation.

It was during the time of the Cosmati, therefore, that the popes won the battle against the Hohenstaufen emperors in their struggle for temporal power. This period also marked the beginning of the struggle of the Roman citizens—with the support and representation of their nobles—against the temporal authority of the pope. By the twelfth century, the citizens of Rome had grown wealthy and naturally claimed political power. In 1143 a city revolt produced the proclamation of a republic and the establishment of a senate. Thereafter, the pope and the emperor together would contrive to prevent the citizens of Rome from attaining their goal of full self-government. Conflict continued, with short-lived periods of reconciliation, until the reign of Pope Clement III, a Roman citizen himself, who came to a final agreement with the city of Rome in the Concordat of 1188. This compromise succeeded because it made concessions to both sides: it restored all temporal rights to the pope while at the same time recognizing the city as a commune. The base for the new revival that Rome experienced from the end of the twelfth until the middle of the thirteenth century was thus established.

Under Innocence III (1198–1216) and Honorius III (1216–27), efficient and powerful rulers, the medieval Papacy reached its peak. The politics of Innocence III centered on the maintenance, restructuring, and expansion of the papal territories in central Italy, with the Rome as the locus of power. These ambitions were possible because of an effective, reorganized administration and wise fiscal policy, which convinced the citizens to support the Papacy. The economically strong citizenry of Rome consisted of a variety of social groups: artisans and small merchants, the great landowners of Latium, the urban aristocracy of managers and financiers, as well as the landowners who had become merchants and overseas shippers. In addition, tourists and pilgrims continued to visit the monuments and churches of Rome, above all the seven principal churches: San Giovanni in Laterano, San Pietro, San Paolo fuori le Mura, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, and San Sebastiano. During the twelfth century, Rome also consolidated its position as the leading European center of finance. In the first decades of the thirteenth century, Rome was the 'head of the world," caput mundi; through the Papacy, the city had become a force in politics, law, and finance. The popes and cardinals accumulated enormous fortunes, and the Church stored the collected goods in the houses of the Templars or the Tuscan bankers. This economic zenith was reflected in the size and splendor of the churches, which would be rehabilitated and redecorated or reornamented to achieve a sumptuousness not previously displayed. The nobles, the magnates of the church, and their relatives would invest their fortunes in urban development as well as in the lands of the Roman countryside, where monasteries and churches would flourish, emulating those of Rome.

At about this time, the popes adopted the outward signs of maximum temporal power, which previously had been at the exclusive disposition of the emperors, in addition to the signs of maximum spiritual power, which the popes had already been employing. The change was evident in their liturgical ceremonies, vestments, insignia, and furnishings, and, of course, in the architecture they promoted and financed. These imperial symbols included, for example, the use of the color purple, resulting in the employment of porphyry as a building material. Another example was gemmed anagrams of an underlying geometry analogous to the arrangement of five points on a die, which in architecture appear in the quincunx of Cosmatesque interlacings.

The ornament of the Cosmatesque churches symbolized the power, both temporal and spiritual, that the Papacy achieved during the twelfth century. In fact, for the medieval pontiffs, Cosmatesque art was the principal means of promoting their power, as evidenced by the proliferation of Cosmatesque churches throughout the Papal State and the great importance of those medieval churches, especially in Rome.

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