This volume focuses on the discourse between hagiography and topography. Specifically, how do the literary traditions about martyrs and their cults in Rome develop and change over time in light of the physical realities of Roman cult locations?
After an introductory chapter, the author considers four cases: Peter and Paul, Laurence, Agnes, and Mary. In each case, the author provides a summary of the basic facts concerning the literary traditions and local cult sites. The end of each section includes overall observations, rather than new arguments. For example, in the section on Peter and Paul, the author discusses alterations in the accounts from the earliest apocryphal acts to the sixth-century Liber Pontificalis. In the case of Lawrence, the author juxtaposes the fourth-century Depositio martyrum with the later Liber Pontificalis. The cultic traditions about Agnes develop relatively late, and some of them are influenced by the play on words between the name Agnes and agnus (lamb). In the case of the cult of Mary, the author recognizes that the arrival of the cult in Rome is quite late, and Mary is not connected to Rome through any martyrdom accounts. However, over time, the disconnect between historical realities and believed reality provided fertile ground for the Marian cult.
The conclusion retraces these proposals and highlights several summary observations: A) cults became dematerialized as cultic locations became increasingly separated from plausible historical realities; B) later authors rewrote martyr stories in order to coincide with their contemporary cityscape, with little or no regard for historical concerns; and C) by the seventh century, pilgrim guides created a new sacred Rome that finalized the process of severing cultic practices from any verifiable historical roots.
We may hope to see further development of the author's ideas in the future, which will benefit from engagement with additional secondary materials, including a number of relevant studies in English that do not appear in the bibliography. For those unfamiliar with this material, the volume provides helpful synopses as a point of entry to exploring these issues.
