Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova in Cimitile/Nola: Studien zu einem zentralen Denkmal der spätantik-frühchristlichen Architektur (review)

This magnificently produced book written by a scholar who knows the archaeological site of Cimitile (near Nola) as well as anyone working today is the welcome fruit of nearly two decades of close association with the basilica complex that arose around the grave of Felix of Nola in the mid-fourth century, was then expanded and enhanced by the émigré Paulinus of Bordeaux, and remained an important pilgrimage center in the medieval period. Despite its general fame as a uniquely preserved and documented late antique saint's shrine, however, the site at Cimitile has not been well understood until quite recently. Early modern archaeology of the site was often haphazard and poorly published. Intermittent and fragmentary field reports (primarily those issued by Gino Chierici from the 1930s through the 1950s) and reconstructions based heavily upon the literary descriptions embedded in the poems and letters of Paulinus (notably R. C. Goldschmidt's Paulinus' Churches at Nola [1940]) seldom sat comfortably side-by-side. Moreover, preservation efforts at the complex were largely insufficient until intensive recovery and restoration began in the late 1980s. But Cimitile is now a show-site well worth the detour from Naples or Pompeii, and Tomas Lehmann's erudite Paulinus Nolanus und die Basilica Nova makes the archaeology and history of the basilica complex fresh and comprehensible.

Lehmann's approach in this volume, as it often was in his preliminary studies, is opportunistically ecumenical. Archival, epigraphic, art historical, textual, and archeological evidence and methodologies are all recruited to the service of historic reconstruction. The volume's introductory chapter is followed by a careful review of excavation and publication activity from the sixteenth through the twenty-first century. Chapter 3 charts the transformation of this originally extra-mural zone (which now underlies modern Nola's contiguous neighbor, Cimitile) from an early imperial cemetery into the suburban pilgrimage shrine it had already become even before Paulinus began construction of the Basilica Nova about 400. A long fourth chapter presents the archeological evidence for the Basilica Nova itself. Two chapters then consider, first, the group of structures (i.e., S. Stefano and S. Tommaso) lying just to the west of the Basilica Nova and the earlier Basilica Vetus and, secondly, the late fifth or early sixth-century construction projects carried out within the Basilica Vetus. Most notable in the latter respect are the still extant mosaic-laden aedicula that surrounds the tombs of Felix, Paulinus, and his wife Therasia and the grand western apse that completely reoriented the Basilica Vetus in the vicinity of these holy graves.

Chapter 7 re-examines the literary evidence for the Basilica Nova. Lehmann introduces, translates, and comments upon the relevant sections of Paulinus's epistula 32 (404; to Sulpicius Severus) and carmina 27 and 28 (the natalicia of 403 and 404). Briefer consideration is given to the evidence of carmen 19 (the natalicium of 405) and to a sixth-century epigraphic sylloge (already thoroughly discussed by Lehmann in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 91 [1992]), which also serves to document the interest of Pope Damasus (366–384) in Felix's Nolan tomb. Chapter 8 collates this broad array of evidence to provide an overview of the plan, form, and function of the new basilica built by Paulinus only a few meters north of the Basilica Vetus that sheltered Felix's tomb. Lehmann's volume concludes with a brief survey of the fate of the Basilica Nova after Paulinus, including recall of the major renovations required by a moment of catastrophic destruction linked to an early sixth-century eruption of Vesuvius.

Words communicate a great deal here, of course, but so, too, do pictures. The volume's 252 black and white images, 40 color reproductions, and three foldout plans not only present a feast for the eyes (especially in the...