Chapter 2 continues an examination of the image’s claims as an object. It explores Borromeo’s search for truthful portraits of Milan’s ancient saints and archbishops, especially that of his most lauded predecessor, the venerated fourth-century bishop St. Ambrose. Borromeo sought to form his modern diocese on ancient models, an act that inspired a great deal of historical research into the early Christian Church. He relied on portraits, too, as valuable forms of historical evidence. Borromeo presumed the truth of the sacred portraits he found in and beyond Milan. He mined ancient images, a designation that could include Renaissance and late medieval works alongside much older ones, for information about the appearance of his early predecessors, down to details of facial hair and dress. Borromeo used these artifacts in the production of new ones, cross-referencing “ancient” images of Ambrose, for example, to produce a truthful likeness of the saint. This use of portraits mirrors the wider economy of portrait-collecting practices in the late Cinquecento, which based the truth of a likeness on the authority of other artifacts more than on chronological dating or illusionism.

Chapter 1 opens the book’s section on “Catholic antiquities,” which addresses Borromeo’s interactions with the diverse images he encountered in the churches of the Milanese diocese. It examines archival records of Borromeo’s church inspections, or visitations, to show that his reform of the church interior focused on the physical integrity of the images he encountered, sacred by virtue of their objecthood as well as their representational value. His emphasis on the sacred objecthood of images had implications for their perceived historicity. Borromeo folded Renaissance Raphaels, miraculous medieval mosaics, and contemporary artworks into the same long arc of ancient custom. If Giorgio Vasari wrote in his 1568 Lives of the Artists that antiquity ended with the fourth-century reign of Constantine, Borromeo’s definition of antiquity was far more flexible in its parameters. Borromeo’s views on the history of sacred images coalesced in a time of intense confessional debate, offering a decidedly Catholic understanding of the image’s antique authority.

Chapter 4 continues this examination of narrative truth, focusing on the new post-Tridentine pressure to accurately portray relics in depictions of sacred history. This chapter explores how two of Borromeo’s most cherished Passion relics, the Column of Flagellation in the Church of Santa Prassede in Rome and the relic of Christ’s burial shroud in Turin, began to appear in narrative art during the 1570s for the first time in the history of Christian art. Both relics were of doubtful authenticity: Borromeo’s Column of the Flagellation was short, rather than the expected long pillar, while the long dimensions of the Shroud of Turin failed to match with descriptions of Christ’s burial cloths in the Bible. Nevertheless, Borromeo and his fellow Catholic scholars attempted to fit these prized relics into sacred history – and artists joined in this endeavor. Artists’ visual skills in the making of the istoria, the dramatic narrative still so central to ambitious art-making, were instrumental in scholarly revisions of biblical events. Artists marshalled practices of figure drawing and composition to explain the possibilities of sacred history, producing istorie of historical value for reformers and antiquarians.

The son of a praetorian prefect, well-educated and well-connected, Ambrose was governor of Aemilia and Liguria when, in 374, he was unexpectedly acclaimed bishop of Milan, though he was not yet even baptized. He was an able administrator, a benefactor of the poor and builder of churches, an innovative liturgist who composed hymns still sung today, and an eloquent preacher who dazzled congregants with allegorizing expositions of the Old Testament that drew on Philo, Origen, and other Greek writers. Ambrose used scriptural tapestries of his own creation to persuade his hearers into following a particular course of action, a competency on display in this letter. Ambrose’s voluminous writings were an important conduit of Greek thought to the Latin West. Major works include On the Sacraments and On the Duties of the Clergy. He also wrote texts dedicated to scriptural exegesis and to the promotion of celibacy and asceticism, especially among women. His theological treatises, more synthetic than groundbreaking, challenged Homoian views of the Holy Spirit and the Incarnation.

Ambrose’s tenure as metropolitan bishop of an imperial capital brought him into considerable contact with the eastern emperor Theodosius I, who frequently resided in Milan during his visits to the West, especially from 388 to 391. Ambrose’s engagement with the emperor was confrontational. For instance, early in his stay, at a church service, Theodosius sought to take communion with the priests at the altar, as was the custom in Constantinople, but according to the church historian Sozomen (Ecclesiastical History 7.25.9), Ambrose told him to return to his seat. This was a harbinger of the complex power dynamic that would characterize the relationship between emperor and bishop in the coming years. In 390, after a general was murdered by rioters in the city of Thessalonica, troops were let loose on the city’s residents, many of whom were slaughtered.

The Mansfeld Regiment was raised in Dresden in early 1625, traveled to northern Italy later that year, and collapsed in 1627. The conflict that brought it to Italy was one part of the wider Thirty Years War, as well as an ongoing struggle between Spain and France over the Valtelline.

This chapter examines Puccini’s early life in the Tuscan town of Lucca. Puccini came from a long line of church musicians and was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfathers as maestro di cappella at the Cattedrale di San Martino. The chapter briefly outlines the careers of these musical forebears and their influence upon the young Puccini, whose musical career would ultimately take a very different course. It examines Puccini’s musical training and the family members and other figures who provided funding for his education. The composer’s move to study at the Conservatorio in Milan is briefly considered, with a particular emphasis on the composers and critics who were his teachers and mentors. These figures played a vital role in helping him gain a foothold in the Italian operatic world of the 1880s, setting him on the path to musical greatness.

This chapter examines Puccini’s relationship with the other young Italian composers of his generation – who came to be known as the giovane scuola italiana – and demonstrates how they were forced into a sometimes antagonistic rivalry with one another. All of these young men were in competition to attract the attention of the major Milanese publishing houses of the day, Ricordi and Sonzogno, and all wanted to be crowned successor to Verdi as Italy’s new national composer. The chapter discusses the composition competition launched by the Sonzogno firm, Puccini’s unsuccessful entry with his opera Le Villi, and Mascagni’s triumph with Cavalleria rusticana. The chapter examines how many of the young composers of the day turned to the verismo genre of opera and discusses the careers of figures including Catalani, Franchetti, and Leoncavallo. Puccini’s process of selecting literary sources to set is considered, with the author showing the importance of rivalry as a creative stimulus for the composer.

This chapter examines Puccini’s relationship with Milan, the city that was most important to his career. It begins with a detailed discussion of the Milan of the composer’s student years, outlining its importance as both an industrial and a cultural centre characterised by cosmopolitanism and modernity. Milan was also the capital of the nineteenth-century operatic world, where many singers, publishers, and critics were based, and with several leading opera houses, most notably La Scala. The chapter discusses how Puccini launched his career in Milan, securing a premiere at La Scala at a very early stage (Edgar). The ill-fated first performance of Madama Butterfly is also discussed, as is the posthumous premiere of Turandot. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the importance of Puccini’s oeuvre at La Scala since his death and the ways in which Puccini came, in a sense, to symbolise the city’s self-image.

Both the urbanism and agriculture of the early Middle Ages broke from the past. A picture of food cultivation and urban density of the cities of Roman Italy is sketched in order to gauge the transformations of late antiquity, which included the reduced population of Italian cities and the fragmentation of urban settlement. The changed urban landscape created possible spaces for food cultivation where there had not been any before. These are apparent in the archaeological record as early as the fifth century and in the textual record in the later sixth century. A key piece of evidence for the transformation of cities is the presence of Dark Earth, humic soil formed in urban contexts after the end of the Roman empire. Dark Earth in Italy is shown here to have been transformed from deposits which were formed deliberately and which underwent a number of different, related processes of waterlogging, accretion, and weathering. The broader economic shape of early medieval Italy, in terms of both regional networks as well as Mediterranean connections, provides a sense of how strategically important urban cultivation became in post-Roman Italy.

Surveys uses made of Virgil's fourth Eclogue in Renaissance Florence under the rule of the Medici dynasty.

Surveys uses made of Virgil's fourth Eclogue in the courts of Renaissance Italy, including Milan, Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino and Capua.