HARVARD CATHOLIC FORUM
The City and the Sacred:
Case Studies from Baroque Rome
by Professor Joseph Connors, Harvard University
Co-sponsored by the Harvard Christian Alumni Society
Thursday, October 24 @ 1:00 PM PT / 4:00 PM ET
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (Room TBA) & Livestreamed
This event is free and open to all; walk-ins welcome but registration requested.
Please help spread the word to anyone who might like to join us. Details and registration info are below.
Rome entered the Renaissance as a bipolar city, with two hubs of power: at the Vatican, seat of the popes, and on the Capitoline Hill, the center of civic government. Both poles underwent complete transformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries through building projects of genius, guided most importantly by the two most famous architects of the age, Michaelangelo and Bernini. But much of the old city was replanned, too: powerful patrons and their architects, especially Borromini, refashioned the major basilicas and the icons enshrined in them into islands of sacred order. These islands projected both stunning beauty of form and the religious values of the Catholic Reform into the multi-layered urban fabric of Rome.
Reception to follow.
Professor Joseph Connors
Joseph Connors is an emeritus professor in the History of Art & Architecture Department at Harvard. He has written a wide range of books and articles on Italian architecture and urban history, including Borromini and the Roman Oratory: Style and Society (1980), and Bernard Berenson: Formation and Heritage (2014), with Louis Waldman. His interests include the early modern library as well as architectural books, prints, drawings and maps. Professor Connors has served as director of the American Academy in Rome (1988-92) and of the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies Villa I Tatti (2002-10), and was also president of the Renaissance Society of America (2014-16). Before coming to Harvard, he taught at the University of Chicago and at Columbia. His PhD is from Harvard.