The Millennial Gap in Dome Construction in Rome

Abstract

Though Rome has a long history of domed constructions, not one dome was built in that city during a one-thousand-year period—roughly between the mid-fifth and the mid-fifteenth century. How can we explain such a gap and what is implied by this absence? This paper begins by asking why dome construction in Rome stopped after the mid-fifth century. Typological, political, ideological, and possibly technical reasons lie at the root of this rupture, which itself urges a reevaluation of the significance and function of domes across time, and of the cultural context that allowed for their demise. A second question is then posed about why Romans were slow to return to dome construction after the form blossomed elsewhere on the Italian peninsula between the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries. This delayed reappearance discloses distinct attitudes toward domes and suggests Romans lacked the desire to build them; indeed, they were quite content with the alternative solutions they had developed in the intervening centuries, chief among which were thin-walled basilicas and their mosaic-encrusted half-dome apses. All told, Rome’s millennial gap in dome construction invites us to reconsider longstanding historiographical assumptions about medieval architecture.