Rebuilding St. Paul's Outside the Walls by Richard Wittman

Rebuilding St. Paul's Outside the Walls by Richard Wittman

In 1823, the fourth-century basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome was destroyed by a catastrophic fire, prompting debate as to whether, and in what style, it should be reconstructed. Two years later, Pope Leo XII made the unprecedented decision to rebuild St. Paul's as an exact replica of its predecessor, which resulted in the most expensive construction project in Rome since the early modern rebuilding of St. Peter's. In this study, Richard Wittman traces this reconstruction within the context of the Church's struggle to adapt to a radically changed and changing world. He offers new perspectives on European architectural modernity and its negotiations with the past, and problematizes received ideas about the sources and significance of architectural historicism. Proposing a new prehistory of the great Catholic revival after 1850, Wittman's study demonstrates the key role that religions motivations played in the formation of modern mentalities, and particularly the historicist component.

'This book is eloquently written, eminently readable and based on wide research in continental archives' Edmund Power, The Downside Review

Richard Wittman is Associate Professor of the History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Architecture, Print Culture, and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France, as well as numerous articles on eighteenth and nineteenth-century European architectural history and theory.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781009414524
ISBN 10	1009414526
Title	Rebuilding St. Paul's Outside the Walls
Author	Richard Wittman
Condition	Unavailable
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2024-01-25
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.