This is a fascinating exploration of the re-awakening and the re-discovery of Rome in the fifteenth century, manifested in the exploitation, examination, excavation and emulation of classical works, notably sculptures. The book centres on the people who began the collecting of such works, the range of pieces gathered, the ways these were displayed, and how such works impacted on the budding and then full-blown renaissance of culture and learning, whether artistic, literary and architectural. There is a mix of ‘ancient’ Roman families using inscriptions and sculptures to cement and flag their ties to the past (see Chapter iv) and the new families that arrive from elsewhere in Italy to participate and cash in on Rome's new rise; these and the Church keenly advertise their wares and attract artists and architects to feed the desire to revive the arts and to build grandly. Alongside this scholars and artists were drawn in to admire, record, borrow and disseminate. Popes and cardinals led the way, in a vein similar to the emperors of old, in creating fine palaces, vast gardens and ornate displays of sculptures (notably the Villa Medici, the Belvedere and the ‘hanging garden’ at Palazzo San Marco), alongside displaying statues and texts in church atria and cloisters (Chapter vii). Elites vied for attention for their lesser collections, and competition meant that richer patrons could buy up items – although sometimes at a loss to the city, since already in the 1480s one author bemoaned how so many ‘good things’ had been ‘stolen, taken, or sent away’ by ‘popes, lords, cardinals, Romans and foreigners’. Pilgrims and cultural visitors were invaluable at the time to boost income and to raise Rome's cultural prestige, but for modern scholars this also meant the generation of immensely useful sources in the form of sketchbooks, epigraphic sylloges (copying the mass of collected inscriptions and noting their locations), letters, etc, which help reveal the vast scale of materials gathered up, excavated and redisplayed – if with an equally substantial portion of these since lost.

What is central to Empire without End, however, is the desire to trace the roots of this well-advertised heritage and display, and to chart efforts by popes, cardinals and local lords in rebuilding Rome physically, religiously and culturally following the papal court's return from Avignon in 1417 (Chapter i). But Wren Christian shows much older roots, indicated in the writings of Petrarch of the 1330s to 1350s, urging the Romans to use their past to boost their present; Petrarch even points to Roman statuary as examples to inspire. As Wren Christian identifies, ‘the idea that ancient statues were worthy of aesthetic veneration’ soon led to these being ‘admirable objects worthy of conservation’ (p 26). Other portraits – on coins and gems – came into play, and by the later fourteenth century, collections were active and contemporary art and poetry looked increasing to ancient models and artefacts (Chapters ii and iii). Prominent was Cardinal Colonna in the 1430s to 1440s, patronizing the arts, alongside building collections of inscriptions and statues in and around his palazzo, which themselves lay among multiple structural remains of Rome's past. Two later popes in the 1460s and 1470s, Paul ii and Sixtus iv, extended such collecting, if taking diverse routes, the former greedily gathering a private abundance, the latter bringing many to more accessible and public view – including famous bronzes such as the Wolf and the Spinario – on the Capitoline Hill (Chapter v).

This is a generously illustrated volume, with more than 250 plates of sculptures, drawings and plans, some full-page and all crisply reproduced. The long credit listing shows the extensive research required to track down works in museums, archives, palazzi and other collections in Italy, France, Germany and elsewhere. An invaluable and rewarding component to the whole is the Catalogue (pp 250–388), which summarizes the main collections of sculpture held by noble families, especially in Rome outside church and public collections, and details aspects of the gathering of artworks, architectural settings and patronage of cultural activities. One example is the Galli family, early on bankers and merchants, who came to Rome c 1450 and bought up well-placed properties and rapidly joined the competitive antiquities’ collecting circle. In the late fifteenth century Jacopo Galli helped finance building works by the cardinal and prominently hosted the young Michelangelo, helping him in contracts in Rome and commissioning works. One special sculpture by Michelangelo is of Bacchus, in the courtyard of the Galli by 1506 set alongside genuine ancient works, many drawn by the visiting Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck in the 1530s and including a sleeping nymph, various torsos and a sphinx relief. Some displayed items may also have come from finds made on people's own properties in excavations and extensions. The Bacchus sculpture is discussed earlier (pp 172–3), recounting how Michelangelo reputedly broke off the right hand and buried it, with the cunning plan that its ‘excavation’ would make people believe that this was a genuine antique and thus consolidate his reputation for crafting sculptures as good as if not finer than the ancients.

All told, this is a work of strong scholarship, adding greater depth to the image of the renascent Rome. It is of course part of a longer story of extracting, selecting and even destroying Rome's ancient past; a companion Yale volume is Bignamini and Hornsby (Reference Bignamini and Hornsby2010) (reviewed here in volume 91), which, though centred on the later spate of would-be excavators-cum-art-dealers, flags how papal permits to excavate in and around Rome go fully back into the fifteenth century. Above all, both books reveal the incredible mass and wealth of statuary – so much of high artistic quality – that filled and adorned ancient Rome.