Summary: Publisher Summary 1 The first of a projected five-volume series (the other volumes will feature Venice, the northern court cities, Naples, and Florence), this work presents six chronological chapters, each written by a senior scholar in the field, on the art of Rome from 1300-1600. Refreshingly, in a field long characterized by a focus on style, this volume is marked by new research, new methods, and a focus on the broader context of the work of art. The result is a fresh look at Renaissance Rome through discussion of works of painting and sculpture many of them, like Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, very familiar derived from an analysis of the written sources for the light they shed on many issues, especially the often profound impact of patronage, the influence of ritual and other kinds of use, and trends within the Church, which commissioned much of Rome's art. Ending with an in-depth discussion of the Counter-Reformation, the rich approach employed in this text expands the reader's understanding of the Renaissance beyond the lives of artists and their works. The volume contains a thorough survey of Roman monuments, is written at a level accessible to the beginning undergraduate student, and contains a wealth of excellent (mainly b&w) illustrations, making it suitable for both seminars and lecture courses. The contributors are Meredith Gill (U. of Notre Dame), Steven Ostrow (U. of California, Riverside), Clare Robertson (U. of Reading, UK), Ingrid Rowland (American Academy in Rome), and Hall (Temple U.). Annotation 漏2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)   Publisher Summary 2 In the period under study here, Rome lived up to its epithet 'The Eternal City'. This is a comprehensive history of the art of Rome in the Renaissance studies; the architecture, sculpture, painting, and decorative arts together in their social, religious, and historical context. Organized around the patronage of the popes, it tells the story of three centuries, in which the eternal city rose from the ashes of its decline in the fourteenth century, when the papal court was transferred to France and then endured the Great Schism of absent and ascending popes. Miraculously, by the first decade of the sixteenth century, under the visionary guidance of Pope Julius II, the artists he commissioned - Bramante, Raphael, and Michelangelo - and the humanists of the papal court with whom he surrounded himself, Rome had established itself as the Christian reembodiment of the Roman Empire.   Publisher Summary 3 Places the arts of the High Renaissance in their social, religious, political and economic context.