ABSTRACT
This book adopts a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach which combines an archaeological and physical analysis of walls, the identification of new documents and the reinterpretation of neglected or misunderstood ones. It includes the reading of literary sources never previously associated with the buildings under analysis, and offers novel and broader comparisons with monuments not only within Rome but throughout Italy, the rest of Europe and the Holy Land too. The crux of the matter was that this was the first Christian altar ever erected and thus the first cult site in Christendom. Benedictines and Franciscans alike would henceforth seek to the exploit the tradition to the full. The memory of the VirgoCoelestis cult on the hill, usually overlooked yet visible even now in a carved relief in the Capitoline Museums, must have also influenced the growth of the Christian legend.
