In this classic study, surveying the city's life from Christian Antiquity through the Middle Ages, Richard Krautheimer focuses on monuments of art and architecture as they reflect the historical events, the ideological currents, and the meaning Rome held for its contemporaries. Lavishly illustrated, this book tells an intriguing story in which the heritage of antiquity intertwines with the living presence of Christianity. Written by one of the great art historians of our time, it offers a profile of the Eternal City unlike any drawn in the past or likely to be drawn in the future. 'Krautheimer was never (or only rarely) interested in studying heavily researched subjects, in valorizing what was already valorized, in reconquering what had long been conquered and reconquered. He was at heart a pioneer, a discoverer, a master of uncharted scholarly terrain in an age when so many things art historical were thought to be understood.'--From the preface by Marvin Trachtenberg