When we consider the life of a celebrity, especially a Pope, who lived over four hundred years ago we must not make the mistake of looking at his life with our modern attitudes and prejudices. As a religious who assumed the papacy, Sixtus V brought with him the customs and attitudes of his vocation. Sixtus' spirit of poverty and obedience would present a challenge to the more worldly Roman court, and he had also come from a humble background. In addition, few Popes had been in obscurity-and even disgrace- for fourteen years prior to their election. Sixtus V has perhaps been overshadowed by the more famous Popes, Julius II and Pius V. We know of contemporary biographies, which appear to be official versions of his life. In this new biography, W. T. Selley shows how Sixtus V was outstanding in his creation of Renaissance Rome, only fifty years after it had been sacked. He was outstanding, from the point of view of good civic policy and he greatly facilitated the path of pilgrims visiting the churches of Rome. Sixtus was abstemious and devout, living quietly with his widowed sister and earning the nickname of the Hermit of Villa Montalto. He was also very intelligent in his diplomacy. Sixtus' contribution to papal administration survived virtually intact into our own time. One only needs to look at so many of the monuments of Rome, the obelisks and fountains, the frescoes and Church facades, to get an awareness of the measure of this great Pope.

Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481), historian, political theorist, and author of a best-selling cookbook, began life as a mercenary soldier and ended it as the head of the Vatican Library. A papal official under the humanist Pope Pius II, he was a member of the humanist academies of Cardinal Bessarion and Pomponio Leto, and was twice imprisoned for conspiring against Pope Paul II. Returning to favor under Pope Sixtus IV, he composed his most famous work, a biographical compendium of the Roman popes from St. Peter down to his own time. The work critically synthesized a wide range of sources and became the standard reference work on papal history for early modern Europe, reprinted dozens of times and translated into a number of languages. A characteristic work of Renaissance humanism, it used Christian antiquity as a standard against which to criticize modern churchmen. This edition contains the first complete translation into English and an improved Latin text. Volume 1, the first of a projected four, covers the period from the founding of the church through ad 461.

A celebration of the art, architecture, and timeless human passion of the Eternal City, Rome Is Love Spelled Backward explores Rome's best-known treasures, often revealing secrets overlooked in conventional guidebooks. With the ancient play on "Roma" and "Amor"—ROMAMOR—Testa invites readers to experience the world's long love affair with one of its most beautiful cities.

The Catholic Church is among the oldest, most secretive, institutions in the world, but in the sixteenth century a friar, Onofrio Panvinio, undertook ground-breaking investigations into the Church's history from Christ to the Renaissance. This study shows how his writings impacted on church and society, but also how he changed historical writing.

Winner of the 2020 Bainton Prize for Reference Works This volume, edited by Pamela M. Jones, Barbara Wisch, and Simon Ditchfield, focuses on Rome from 1492-1692, an era of striking renewal: demographic, architectural, intellectual, and artistic. Rome’s most distinctive aspects--including its twin governments (civic and papal), unique role as the seat of global Catholicism, disproportionately male population, and status as artistic capital of Europe--are examined from numerous perspectives. This book of 30 chapters, intended for scholars and students across the academy, fills a noteworthy gap in the literature. It is the only multidisciplinary study of 16th- and 17th-century Rome that synthesizes and critiques past and recent scholarship while offering innovative analyses of a wide range of topics and identifying new avenues for research. Committee's statement "The volume includes a multidisciplinary study of early modern Rome by focusing on the 16th and 17th centuries by re-examining traditional topics anew. This volume will be of tremendous use to scholars and students because its focus is very well conceptualized and organized, while still covering a breadth of topics. The authors celebrate Rome’s diversity by exploring its role not only as the seat of the Catholic church, but also as home to large communities of diplomats, printers, and working artisans, all of whom contributed to the city’s visual, material, and musical cultures". Roland H.Bainton Prizes Contributors are: Renata Ago, Elisa Andretta, Katherine Aron-Beller, Lisa Beaven, Eleonora Canepari, Christopher Carlsmith, Patrizia Cavazzini, Elizabeth S. Cohen, Thomas V. Cohen, Jeffrey Collins, Simon Ditchfield, Anna Esposito, Federica Favino, Daniele V. Filippi, Irene Fosi, Kenneth Gouwens, Giuseppe Antonio Guazzelli, John M. Hunt, Pamela M. Jones, Carla Keyvanian, Margaret A. Kuntz, Stephanie C. Leone, Evelyn Lincoln, Jessica Maier, Laurie Nussdorfer, Toby Osborne, Miles Pattenden, Denis Ribouillault, Katherine W. Rinne, Minou Schraven, John Beldon Scott, Barbara Wisch, Arnold A. Witte.