ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on an achievement which is much less well known, at least to the broader public, and that is the significant contributions which Leonard Boyle has made to our knowledge of the history of the lower church of San Clemente and also of its nineteenth-century excavation. Leonard Boyle's first foray into the controversies surrounding the history of the lower church appeared in print in the same year as the guidebook, and took as its subject the still unresolved issue of the date of the abandonment of the Early Christian basilica and its replacement by the slightly narrower medieval church which stands today. By the time the reader has made his way through the succeeding pages, Garrison's credibility has been utterly destroyed, along with the alleged 1128 date for the dedication of the new church. Apart from anything else, these pages breathe life into what must have been a very exciting time for Mullooly and his colleagues.
