On Holy Ground: Liturgy, Architecture, and Urbanism in the
Cathedral and in the Streets of Medieval Florence asks just
one question: had the Florence Duomo never been excavated, what
could we have known of the legendary cathedral of S. Reparata below
it? The answer comes through the transcription of two key
texts: one, never published until now, was written for the
cathedral clergy around 1190; the other was composed around 1230,
and printed just once, in the eighteenth century. English
translations bring to life the liturgical year in medieval
Florence, from the gorgeous pageantry of Christmas to the plaintive
rites of Easter. The archaeological finds now make sense of
the chapels, altars, and hallowed tombs that are cited in the
texts.
The volume then reconstructs the canonry (torn down around
1840), where the officiating priests lived, and the neighboring
buildings on the cathedral square: a hospital, a school, and a
prominent city gate that long ago disappeared, and a Baptistery,
bishop's palace, and confraternity headquarters that are still
standing.
One chapter is devoted to the religious processions that
ventured forth from S. Reparata to wind through the streets of
Florence. Here the old texts are brought to life by the towers,
bridges, churches, and monuments that survive from medieval
Florence. The processional routes are examined for their social,
political, and economic importance to the cathedral clergy, and the
way the routes delineated the main lines of Roman Florence.
The final chapter explores the food that poured onto the tables of
the cathedral clergy from the farms and villages of the Florentine
countryside. Altogether, the volume provides an exceptional
look at the physical and spiritual impact of Florence's
thousand-year-old cathedral in the age of Dante.
"The projected four-volume publication is a serious enterprise that deserves praise (...)" (B. Ward-Perkins, in: Journal of Medieval Archaeology, vol. 55, 2011, p. 371-372)