The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity by Éric Rebillard (review)

REVIEWS 280 chapter of the first part of the text examines the interrogations and accusations that followed the death, his elaborate funeral, and finally, the dispersal of the members and belongings of his court. With the discussion of Ippolito’s court and his collections at the conclusion of the first part, there is a logical transition to the second part of the text, which considers his court in more detail. The second part is organized thematically, unlike the first part in which information is presented chronologically. The first chapter examines Ippolito’s dress and his abilities to use clothing to alter his persona. Rebecchini discusses the 1532 portrait in which Titian portrayed Ippolito in a decidedly secular fashion with maroon velvet doublet, tight belt and exotic cap. From contemporary descriptions, the author demonstrates that Ippolito did in fact appear to prefer secular dress and only wore the garments of his ecclesiastical office when required. In the discussion of Ippolito’s court, we learn that it was large, accumulated constraining debts, and included Eastern slaves and servants. In chapter 8, Rebecchini considers the poetry created by humanists in Ippolito’s circle and emphasizes the importance of oral performance of poetry and music at meals. In the final chapter, we see that Ippolito had antiquarian interests and interacted with some of the leading artists of the High and Late Renaissance. An especially intriguing suggestion put forth in this last chapter is related to a 1534 letter from Titian to a member of Ippolito’s household describing a painting of a woman. In light of the letter’s date and Ippolito’s taste for sensual imagery, Rebecchini proposes that Ippolito’s collection may have been considered as a possible destination for Titian’s famous Venus of Urbino. The epilogue concludes the text with a discussion of Ippolito’s legacy in literature and art during the reign of Duke Cosimo I de’Medici, who came to power following Alessandro de’Medici’s 1537 assassination . From start to finish, Rebecchini creates a vivid picture of the tumultuous trajectory of Ippolito de’Medici’s short but remarkable life. Beginning with his illegitimacy and concluding with his sudden death, Ippolito’s life was never easy. Although Ippolito has received relatively little scholarly attention, Rebecchini’s title, “un altro Lorenzo” (another Lorenzo), highlights Ippolito’s significant place in relation to his Medici ancestors. Like many other Medici before him, Ippolito possessed intense political ambition, demonstrated great concern for his legacy, and died prematurely. LISA BOUTIN, Art History, UCLA Éric Rebillard, The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, trans. Elizabeth Trapnell Rawlings and Jeanine Routier-Pucci, Cornell Studies in Classical Philology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2009) 240 pp. Éric Rebillard’s Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity, an English translation of his 2003 Religion et sepulture: L’Église, les vivants et les morts dans l’Antiquité tradive, presents the author’s new and challenging understanding of life and death in the first centuries of Christianity. In this work, Rebillard rejects the impulse to simply follow the scholarly consensus that the late antique church controlled burial customs, arguing instead that lay Christians, rather than bishops, primarily cared for the dead. Rebillard, after a brief introduction, examines late antique care of the dead REVIEWS 281 across seven chapters. He commences his dismantling of the long-standing paradigm of episcopal control of distinctly Christian burial practices through a brief first chapter that deftly combines a review of the scholarly literature, a systematic evaluation of early references to cemeteries, and a thorough explication of the relevant terminology. The next portion of his text (chaps. 2 and 3) follows his avowal not to take the peculiarity of Christian burial customs for granted by focusing on how multiple late antique groups—pagans, Jews, and Christians—approached death. Chapter 2 demonstrates the lack of structure imposed by any of the religious groups (including the Christians and particularly the church) onto burial custom, as Rebillard reveals that communal burials were not particularly significant to Christian identity. Then, chapter 3 narrows the focus to Christian membership in late antique collegia, determining that churches were not officially organized as collegia, and that Christians continued to participate in...