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Krautheimer, Richard. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Essential. This is the backbone source for early Christian basilicas, liturgical space, urban context, and the development of Christian architecture after Constantine. Krautheimer is especially useful for not treating churches as isolated floor plans, but as part of city, ritual, bishop, patronage, and memory.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Very useful for Rome as a layered city: imperial remains, Christian churches, papal authority, public space, and the transformation of Roman urban memory.
Krautheimer, Richard, Wolfgang Frankl, and Spencer Corbett. Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome. 5 vols. Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1937–1977.
Heavy academic reference work. Best for the Lateran, Old Saint Peter’s, early Roman churches, plans, architectural evidence, and dating.
Mathews, Thomas F. The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971.
More focused on Constantinople, but excellent for connecting architecture and liturgical movement.
White, L. Michael. Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
Great for the transition from house settings and adapted spaces into larger public Christian architecture.
Brandenburg, Hugo. Ancient Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Century: The Dawn of Christian Architecture in the West. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.
Very useful for Rome, the Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Sabina, and the formation of Christian public architecture.
Snyder, Graydon F. Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003.
Best for the “before Constantine” contrast: house churches, burial spaces, symbols, and pre-public Christian material culture.
Elsner, Jaś. Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Excellent for the transformation from Roman imperial art and space into Christian visual culture and triumphal imagery. Elsner’s work is especially useful for your “empire becomes the bones of the church” angle.
Constantine, Legal Shift, and Imperial Patronage
Eusebius. Life of Constantine. Translated by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Primary source. Use carefully because it is highly pro-Constantine and partly panegyric, but it is essential for Constantine’s Christian image, patronage, and sacred building projects. Eusebius is one of the key ancient witnesses for Constantine’s role in Christian imperial memory.
Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926–1932.
Useful background for the pre-Constantinian church, persecution memory, martyr tradition, and Christian self-understanding before public imperial patronage.
Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.
Major scholarly source on Constantine, Eusebius, politics, Christian patronage, and imperial ideology.
Drake, H. A. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Excellent for the political complexity of Constantine’s relationship with bishops and Christian institutions.
Lenski, Noel, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Good edited volume for Constantine’s world: religion, politics, empire, law, cities, and Christianization.
Odahl, Charles Matson. Constantine and the Christian Empire. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2010.
Useful general scholarly overview, especially for readers/listeners who need the historical framework.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100–400. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
Classic work on Christianization as a social and political process.
Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Excellent big-picture framing. Helps avoid the cartoon version where Constantine instantly creates medieval Christianity.
Basilicas, Liturgy, Space, and the Body
Yasin, Ann Marie. Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Very strong for how churches organized community, memory, saints, ritual space, and sacred presence.
Yasin, Ann Marie. “Sacred Installations: The Material Conditions of Liturgy in Late Antique Churches.” In Objects in Context, Objects in Use, edited by Luke Lavan, Ellen Swift, and Toon Putzeys. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Useful for altars, liturgical furnishing, and how sacred space is made materially.
Bowes, Kim. Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Good for the public/private transition, elite patronage, domestic religion, and late antique religious change.
Markus, R. A. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Important for the shift from ancient Christian worlds into more structured post-Constantinian Christianity.
Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
This will become even more important for your next episode on martyrs, relics, tombs, bones, and pilgrimage.
MacCormack, Sabine. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
Great for public ceremony, imperial ritual, Christian adaptation, and how power becomes theatrical and architectural.
Lateran, Old Saint Peter’s, and Holy Sepulchre
Davis, Raymond. The Book of Pontiffs: The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715. Rev. ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010.
Translation of the Liber Pontificalis. Useful for the Lateran, papal memory, church foundations, donations, and claims about Constantine.
Mango, Cyril. The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.
Excellent sourcebook for texts on Christian art, architecture, and sacred building.
Ward-Perkins, J. B. “The Shrine of St. Peter’s and Its Twelve Spiral Columns.” Journal of Roman Studies 42, no. 1–2 (1952): 21–33.
Very useful for Old Saint Peter’s, reused columns, Solomonic column traditions, and apostolic memory. The tradition of reused marble columns at Old Saint Peter’s directly supports your spolia-and-memory section.
Krautheimer, Richard. “Mensa-Coemeterium-Martyrium.” Cahiers Archéologiques 11 (1960): 15–40.
Important for tomb, altar, martyr memory, and architectural development.
Wilken, Robert Louis. The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Useful for Jerusalem, holy geography, sacred memory, and the Holy Sepulchre.
Taylor, Joan E. Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.
Strong source for holy places, memory, archaeology, and early Christian sacred geography.
Biddle, Martin. The Tomb of Christ. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999.
Useful for Holy Sepulchre archaeology and the architectural framing of crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.
Spolia, Reused Stone, and Roman Material Inheritance
Kinney, Dale. “Spolia. Damnatio and Renovatio Memoriae.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 117–148.
One of the key scholarly pieces for spolia, memory, reuse, and interpretation.
Kinney, Dale. “Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia.” In The Art of Interpreting, edited by Susan C. Scott, 52–67. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.
Great for your nuance: spolia is not always theft, not always theology, not always conquest. It can be practical, symbolic, aesthetic, political, or all of those at once.
Brilliant, Richard, and Dale Kinney, eds. Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.
Excellent broader collection on reuse, appropriation, memory, and architectural meaning.
Hansen, Maria Fabricius. The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2003.
Very relevant to your point that reused materials could create a meaningful Christian aesthetic, not just a cheap construction solution.
Brenk, Beat. “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics versus Ideology.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 103–109.
Very useful for the practical-versus-symbolic debate.
Greenhalgh, Michael. The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages. London: Duckworth, 1989.
Good for how Roman materials, statues, columns, and monuments survive, are reused, or are reinterpreted.
Pensabene, Patrizio
Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.
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