2. - Rewiring the Sacred Circuit (Roma Sancta Renovata)

Summary

Chapter 2, “Rewiring the Sacred Circuit (Roma Sancta Renovata),” delves more deeply into the insights of Chapter 1, considering the process of mapping sacred space. I focus on two late antique “case studies” – a list of the burial sites of early Roman Christian martyrs – the so-called Depositio Martyrum from the Calendar of 354 – and the work of the controversial pope Damasus (366–84 CE) in promoting specific saints’ shrines on the urban periphery. In the nineteenth century, the early modern impulse to make maps drove scholars to interpret these materials as determinative of the late antique Christian conquest of space.