Romana Ecclesia Cathedra Petri Michele Maccarrone History of the Medieval Papacy

Description

Maccarrone, Michele. Romana Ecclesia Cathedra Petri.  A cura di Piero Zerbi, Raffaello Volpini, Alessandro Galuzzi. Roma: Herder Editrice e Libreria, 1991. Two volumes. [lxxvi; 1-670 pp; 671-1419 pp] ISBN 88-85876-15-3. 24.5 cm or 9 ½ in. Paper bindings. Condition of both volumes is fine. Italian language text.

The definitive anthology of Michele Maccarrone’s essays on the medieval papacy. The first five essays show how veneration for Saint Peter spread between the second and fifth centuries and with what consequences for the papacy. Archeological evidence from the first half of the twientieth century documented the location and maintinence of St. Peter’s grave as early as the mid-second century. Maccarrone notes the resistance of Romanization and Petrinization of Christianity. Essays 6 to 10 trace the ideas of late antiquity across the medieval period to the end of the eleventh century. Essays 11 and 12 discuss the twelfth century and the degree to which Gregorian ideas of reform and centralization worked for or against each other. The thirteenth century is covered by essays 13 to 17, which cover an increasingly hieratic papacy and its fiercest critic, Dante Alighieri.  The last three essays defend the staying power of the image, memory and patronage of St. Peter in the popular imagination after a millennium. Maccarrone shows the papacy to be an institution with leaders who were loyal to their roots in St. Peter’s legacy. The evidence Maccarrone used included manuscript sources, archeological data, architectural and art-historical information. Maccarrone demonstrates his authority on the medieval papacy as few other historians of the papacy have.

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