LAUSR

the people (il popolo) and the city nobility (nobiles viri), who possessed wealth, provided protection as mounted soldiers (milites), and were crucial in 1143 in declaring independence from the pope and establishing the commune. Rome, too, and uniquely, had barons, a smaller group of powerful families that rose rapidly around the middle of the thirteenth century, who laid hold of vast territories (castra and casali) thanks to a family member elected pope, such as Benedetto Caetani (Boniface VIII). As the barons pulled away from the commune—often struggling against one another, like the Colonna and Orsini—the lesser nobility made common cause with the popolo (i.e., all the other socio-occupational groups). The commune, too, had a well-running, sophisticated government with elected officials and an efficient bureaucracy noted for its civic services, making it “one of the strongest and best organised communes in all Italy” (217). In this setting, Maire Vigueur traverses the milestones of medieval Rome: the city’s struggles with neighbors (Tivoli, Albano, Tuscolo, Viterbo), the renovatio senatus of 1143, the tribuneship of Cola di Rienzo, the radical turns his leadership took in invoking the imperial ideal and Rome’s special destiny, and the denouement leading to the surrender of the commune’s independence to the popes in 1398. The author ends with a fresh perspective on the unique mentalité of Rome’s communal period (particularly before the popes’ departure for Avignon) in its appreciation of Rome’s ancient traditions; its embrace of artistic innovations in marble, mosaics, frescoes, and pavements; in the wondrous creativity of medieval Rome, as seen in the Romans’ love of color, polychromy, and ornamentation; in the appropriation of noble ruins to illustrate their prestige, “the best way of paying homage to the beauty and value of the ancient artistic patrimony” (334); and in the brilliance and legacies of its indigenous artists—Rusuti, Torriti, and Cavallini. In this richly detailed, comprehensive picture of communal Rome we welcome a work that restores the city’s historical significance while bringing the rich colors and contours of its medieval period back to life.