This elegant volume offers the first English translation of Maffeo Vegio's De Rebus Antiquis Memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri Romae, a text dating to around the middle of the fifteenth century, perhaps Vegio's last work. Accompanying the authoritative voice of Maffeo Vegio (1407–58)—one of the last eyewitnesses to the Old St. Peter's—is the digital reconstruction of the old basilica, which makes our encounter with this bygone place all the more vivid and imaginative.
The editors aptly encircled Vegio's text (in English translation) with introductory, biographical, and historical chapters that provide a necessarily rich context, befittingly leading the reader into the complex world of a fifteenth-century poet, humanist, and canon of St. Peter's, including his account of the basilica's past and present vicissitudes, treasures, changes, role, and meaning. The volume's design and structure effectively contribute to the reader's reception of Vegio's main argument, convictions, and aims. Right at the start, the large color image on the dust jacket of Smith's and O'Connor's volume bids the reader to focus on Old St. Peter's most significant place: the tomb of Peter at the apse, and the inscriptions on the apsidal and the triumphal arches claiming Constantine's patronage of St. Peter's.
The volume is organized into three parts: part 1, where, after a succinct introduction—much appreciated for its discussion of the Chapter of St. Peter's as a central institution in the life of the basilica—we are ushered into the life and times of Maffeo Vegio, the humanist we all know primarily as the author of the thirteenth book of the Aeneid; here we meet him as a canon of St. Peter's, committed to asserting the primacy of the basilica (against the Lateran's supremacy, supported by documents such as the Donation of Constantine). Following the biographical and historical pages are two chapters, “The Structure and the Meaning of Vegio's Text” and “A Humanist Looks at a Medieval Marvel,” that discuss Vegio's painstaking reconstruction and archaeological efforts, his study of inscriptions, and evidence he gathered from his own interpretations and discoveries, as well as from old texts such as the Liber Pontificalis and Petrus Mallius's Basilicae Veteris Vaticanae Descriptio. Previous descriptions of the basilica undergo Vegio's critical examination, and his discriminating eye spots and leaves out legendary and apocryphal elements. Vegio's interest in writing of the Old St. Peter's—the reader is invited to consider—may have been spurred by Nicholas V's plan for a new St. Peter's, hence the urge to record the Old St. Peter's for posterity. Smith and O'Connor highlight that for Vegio, “historical memory will increase affection and devotion to the basilica” (54), while his strong, genuine passion for early Roman antiquities, inscriptions, and relics led to discoveries and connections.
A conclusion and endnotes close this first section of the volume. Part 2 contains Smith's and O'Connor's English rendition of Vegio's four-book De Rebus Antiquis Memorabilibus Basilicae S. Petri Romae, a translation mostly based on the authoritative Latin text published by Conrad Janning (Acta Sanctorum [1717]), as the editors, by their own admission, “did not foresee a need to produce a critical edition” (119). They did, however, get rather close to blueprinting a critical edition of Vegio's text while translating it into English, and they ought to be commended for their philological work on a number of important manuscripts transmitting Vegio's text. Vegio's account is fascinating both in its argumentation of the basilica's history of predilection by kings, emperors, empresses, and popes, and in its long record of sacred events, powerful monuments, and memories, all of which testify to the basilica's uniquely supreme place in Christendom.
Part 3, “The Image: The Reconstruction of St. Peter's circa 1450,” offers images and descriptions of the basilica as Vegio knew it. For the digital model, credit is given to Ruo Jia and Luo Xuan, who collaborated with Christine Smith. The reader is toured around Old St. Peter's through visual and verbal reconstructions based on Vegio's account (and the medieval records Vegio selectively relied on), and also those of later writers, such as Tiberio Alfarano and Giacomo Grimaldi, who built on Vegio's text. Smith and O'Connor underscore here that Vegio established the official version of St. Peter's history and meaning for all later accounts. His work is, indeed, “the founding document of Christian archeology” (104). An appendix, endnotes, bibliography, and index complete this volume.
Smith's and O'Connor's Eyewitness to Old St. Peter's is a valuable work: it gives us access to an exceptional record of the history of Rome and of Renaissance architecture, religion, and spirituality. At the same time, this publication also draws a more complete portrait of Maffeo Vegio. We learn of his striking philological, historical, and archaeological pursuits, thanks to Smith's and O'Connor's remarkable exploration.
