Greatly acclaimed by critics and yet poorly known, Nostalghia is a 1983 film by Andrei Tarkovsky in which the Russian virtuoso explores childhood anxieties and the trauma of detachment from one's homeland. A host of mysterious, unsettling Italian tableaus frames the journey of a Russian man to Italy, while heightening the conflict between a complicated present and an unresolved past. Critical, however, is the scene of the madman Domenico committing suicide on the Capitolium, as he stands on the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. Prior to setting himself ablaze, in a ghastly and grand crescendo Domenico lashes out at the times we live in, both invoking Armageddon and crying out for a more compassionate world. Reduced to a human torch, he falls off the statue, as idle bystanders and law enforcers look on. Put simply, this surreal cinematic rendition of a man's death on the Capitolium hill evokes, perhaps inadvertently, centuries of prodigies, capital punishments, martyrdom and drama that unfolded at that same site.

We are indebted to M. for his articulating the narrative of these same distant, momentous events within a framework of religious shifts and land use. The book illustrates the history of the Capitolium through the lenses of political and cultic practices. Almost as a disclaimer, M. makes it plain that the study does not offer an archaeological autopsy of the site nor does it describe the complicated evolution of its built environment through classical and post-classical antiquity. The modest visual and topographic apparatus, frankly inadequate, reinforces this point – A. Carandini's Atlas as well as the work of P.L. Tucci and F.P. Arata may aid the reader's navigation. Instead, the book brings into focus the experiencing of the site, i.e. how its space was perceived, contested, laboured upon and ultimately transformed. Overall, this perspective articulates a history of Rome from the heights of the Capitolium and follows the city as it grappled with its religious dilemmas and began a long skid into political marginality. At stake, however, are two recurring questions: was the Capitolium Hill a concrete, tangible reality recognised by all or was it rather a literary construct? How did its legacy shape the lives of the folks who lived in Rome during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages?

The preface and introduction plunge the reader into the literary realities of the Capitolium; their thorough excursus of authors sets the stage for the semantics of place and questions that lie at the core of the book, while an outline is duly presented. M.’s prose style, incidentally, merits praise. He not only writes beautifully but also takes stock of what has been achieved section by section, as he guides the readers through a complex landscape amidst flashbacks and forwards.

Chapter 1 delves into the issue of the Capitolium as terminus of imperial processions. The rub is the frequency of this practice, and, more to the point, the issue of discontinuity. It is apparent that the ascent to the Capitolium was no stringent sine qua non for wielding imperial power in Rome. Augustus himself, building programmes notwithstanding, shunned the ritual climbing of the hill. New foci in Rome at that point advertised the princeps’ political achievements. It is M.’s analysis of the period from the third to the fourth centuries, demarcated as it was by conspicuous imperial absence and the occasional mounting of the hill, that begs questions as to the role of the Capitolium and its relevance in the political discourse of the day. Maxentius and Constantine, of course, had their own respective agendas as they divorced themselves from ancestral practices.

The eclectic, rapidly evolving religious corollary in the capital, however, needs to be brought into sharper focus. How did a traditional cult fare in that context? What was the Capitolium in the fourth century ad? Ammianus’ account of the well-known journey of Constantius II to Rome dilutes the alleged prominence of the Capitolium into a catalogue of famous monuments. What generates awe and incarnates the spirit of Rome is rather the Forum of Trajan, ‘never again to be imitated by mortal men’ (Amm. 16.13). Meanwhile new itineraries, grounded in pilgrimage and worship of Christian martyrs, redesigned the topography of Rome at the expense of the Capitolium and the destitute appearance of its monuments. Nevertheless, as Chapter 2 shows, the hill was still repaired, inhabited, used and traversed by local folks, whether for daily routines or administrative obligations. Whether the Capitoline was also a locus of Christian worship is a central question in Chapter 3. More to the point, M. explores the possibility that the elusive cult of S. Maria in Capitolio, documented from the tenth century onwards, may be pushed back to the late sixth century as a result of the patronage of the exarch Narses. The flurry of new Theotokos shrines, greatly fuelled as it was under the mandate of Justinian, may well have led to the establishment of an early Marian shrine on the Capitolium, just as in Constantinople, Jerusalem and Antioch, to name only a few places (John Malalas 17.19). Fascinating though this possibility may be, what needs to be addressed is how S. Maria in Capitolio may have functioned as a counter-monument challenging its society to confront a surrounding memorialised past. In any event, the theme of the influence of Byzantium on Rome's built environment still needs to be taken up again, and M. paves the way with a panoply of questions that range from euergetism to the topography of Rome and Constantinople.

Chapter 4 segues into the analysis of people's experience of the Capitolium, with a detailed analysis of Constantine's rejection of the Capitolium, reprising and expanding a point made in Chapter 1. What stands out, M. writes, is the survival of the site and the memories it preserved, which gave impetus to the repairs to the temple of Jupiter of the fifth and sixth centuries. The following chapters then address the link between the Capitolium and memory in Christian times, that is, how the Capitolium functioned both as a memorial and emblem of Christianity's triumph. Episodes of martyrs and traitors are braided together with the apologists’ concern for penning stories that sought to conceal the Capitolium and, not least, the ideals that were cast in it. Also, Chapter 5 amply draws on Augustine's perspective to explain the failure of Roman religious thought and the nonsense of Jupiter's cult. Ultimately, the destruction of the temple is the picture, drawn as it was by apologists and brought to the fore in Chapter 6, that best conveys the triumph of the true God. In that vein, the felled Capitolium is appended to a long list of pagan sites that proved the impotence of the pagan deities though the temple of Apollo at Daphne is conspicuously missing (see J.R. Stenger 2018). As opposed to its literary interpretation, it is the materiality of the site as the locus where trials and forced sacrifices took place that takes centre stage, and capitolia across the Mediterranean are brought into focus (Chapter 7). Here lies the rub, one that pervades the whole book: how to draw the line between the Capitolium as temple and a hill with its multifarious functions and relentless transformations. While the issue remains, we are nevertheless grateful to M. for writing a book so greatly imbued with erudition and exciting perspectives and one that advances the scholarly treatment of the Capitolium in antiquity.