“The local repertoire of medieval plainsong known as Old Roman Chant includes thirty-six ‘historiae’ in honor of martyrs and popes buried in the Eternal City. These sets of antiphons and responsories were integral to the growth of local relic cults and provided aural counterparts to the literary and pictorial Lives (vitae) of their holy subjects. My project will culminate in a critical edition of the Roman historiae and a related monograph that traces their development from the eighth to the thirteenth century. The latter will analyze the hagiographic sources of their texts, the style of their melodies, and the construction and decoration of burial churches for their saints. In so doing, it will not only illuminate a rich yet understudied musical repertoire but also reveal how the historiae both complemented and shaped the visual programs of the churches in which they were sung.”
Current
Rome Prize Fellows and Projects
The American Academy in Rome awards the Rome Prize to a select group of artists and scholars, after an application process that begins in the fall of each year. The winners, announced in the spring, are invited to Rome to pursue their work in an atmosphere conducive to intellectual and artistic freedom, interdisciplinary exchange, and innovation. The 2011-12 Rome Prize winners are listed here with a brief project summary in their own words.
To download the brochure from the Rome Prize Ceremony held in New York on 13 April, 2011, announcing the 2011-2012 Rome Prize winners click here.
Medieval Studies
Assistant Professor, Department of History, The Catholic University of America
“I plan to complete my book entitled Charlemagne's Practice of Empire. The book reconsiders how Charlemagne and his men exercised their power, arguing that royal authority was far more flexible, ad hoc, and tolerant of diversity than scholars have previously recognized. I examine the nature of Charlemagne's exercise of power in three thematic sections, addressing tools of control and coercion, innovations and the pace of change, and the balancing of standardization and diversity. Rather than simply imposing Frankish control on conquered regions, Charlemagne and his men sought to use them as a testing ground for techniques of rulership later imported back to Francia. The process of learning from conquered regions is particularly clear in the Kingdom of Italy. It is this analysis of how the conquest of Italy changed Charlemagne's rulership which I hope to write in Rome.”
Department of Art History, Rutgers University
"My project focuses on the fifth-century Orthodox Baptistery in Ravenna. Through consideration of the Baptistery's imagery and its exceptional variety of media, I investigate how images, inscriptions, materials, and liturgical performance acted in dialogue with one another and together helped enhanced the initiate's "rebirth" and new found union with a Christian God. The Baptistery's rich combination of imagery, lavish materials, and prominent inscriptions reveals the sophisticated and compelling ways in which ecclesiastical patrons generated new members for an increasingly powerful Church and heightened the moment of conversion. Through study of this important monument, therefore, I explore issues of materiality, text-and-image relationships, liturgical experience, and episcopal power in fifth-century Italy. In so doing, I hope to offer new and more nuanced insights into the dynamic interaction between images, materials, and viewers within the Baptistery itself and, by extension, the sacred spaces of early medieval Italy."
