Book Series Reading Christian Art and Architecture, vol. 2

From the Catacombs to Gregory the Great

Monsignor Timothy Verdon

  • Pages: 272 p.
  • Size:220 x 280 mm
  • Illustrations:27 b/w, 289 col.
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2026


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The present volume is the second of eight that read Christian art and architecture in relation to Scripture and exegesis, to theology, to liturgy, and to devotional piety.

Subject(s)
BIO

Director of the Museo dell’Opera dell Duomo, Florence, Monsignor Timothy Verdon, a Canon of the city’s cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore, is also Director of the Office of Sacred Art of the Florentine Archdiocese and former Consultor of the Vatican Commission of Church Heritage. Author of numerous books and articles on Christian art, Verdon, who has a Ph.D. in art history from Yale University and has been a Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Villa I Tatti (Florence), is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at King’s College, London. He has organized major exhibitions at Turin, Washington, D.C., Seoul, and New York City, and is the author both of the 2012–2015 installation project of the Florence Museo dell’Opera and of its 2025–2028 expansion.

Summary

The present volume is the second of eight that read Christian art and architecture in relation to Scripture and exegesis, to theology, to liturgy, and to devotional piety. Entitled 'From the Catacombs to Gregory the Great', it moves from the first efforts to translate biblical words into images, in the catacombs, to the rapid development of monumental architecture and art once Christianity became the state religion of the Empire. Rome, Jerusalem, Constantinople and Ravenna are the venues of this growth, whose logic changes when missionary activity extends the faith to northern Europe.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Illustrations and Copyright
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Author’s Foreword

I FROM HEARING TO SEEING
Art in the Catacombs
Towards Architecture
Prayer, Persecution, Christian Heroism
Impassioned Words, Neutral Images

II CONSTANTINE AND THE CHRISTIAN BASILICAS
A Site Between Past and Future
The Basilica Commemorating Peter
A Network of Churches
The Wedding Garment

III CHURCH COUNCILS AND THE IMAGE OF CHRIST
The Council of Nicaea and the Image of Christ
Human and Divine, Earthly and Heavenly
Symbols and Songs
Christmas and Christ’s Mother

IV NARRATIVE CYCLES AND HISTORICAL IDENTITY
Monumental Concordances
A New Identity
New Heroes
Monasticism and ‘Holy Wars’
The World in a Ray of Light

V ART FOR AN ELITE
Small and Precious Works
Illustrated Books
Functional Symbolism
Symbolic Space
Ritual, Language, Taste

VI JERUSALEM AND THE LOCA SANCTA
Buildings, Ideas, Spirituality
The Emotional Factor
The Influence of Constantine’s Holy Sepulchre Complex
The Passionate Pilgrim

VII CONSTANTINOPLE IN THE AGE OF JUSTINIAN
A Court Style, the Palace Church
Aesthetics and the Sacred
The End of an Epoch

VIII RAVENNA, CAPITAL OF THE WEST
Words of Gold
The Two Baptisteries
Theodoric’s Palatine Basilica
Lux hic nata est

IX THE RAVENNA OF JUSTINIAN
The Church of San Vitale
The Mosaics: Heaven and Earth
Mosaics: Salvation History and the Eucharist
The Mosaics: Liturgical Allusions
Sant’Apollinare in Classe
Symbolism and Style

X THE AGE OF GREGORY THE GREAT
Liturgical Architecture and Art
Liturgy, Monasticism, Mission
The Mission to Britain
Barbarian Italy
From the Catacombs to Europe

Bibliographic Note
Name Index

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