Rome and Medieval Culture (English and German Edition)

Gregorovius's history of medieval Rome is an early example of urban history in the microcosmic sense that is now standard for the genre. Like the histories of cities being prosecuted today, Gregorovius's Roman history is an attempt to write general history by focusing upon a circumscribed manageable framework which is either the embodiment or the crossroads of general movements. For the author, the city of Rome was just such a crossroads in the middle ages: as the seat of the papacy, as the basis of the Empire, and as the pivot of Italy, his Rome witnesses the crucial events of European history........FROM THE PREFACE.