Renaissance Rome

Abstract This chapter traces the evidence for the placement of Pope Hadrian’s epitaph within St Peter’s, its survival throughout the Middle Ages, its removal from the old basilica, and its preservation in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It uses all of the antiquarian sources, both textual and visual, which observed and commented on the inscription in situ in the south transept, alongside those that traced the destruction of the old church and its monuments. It argues that the decision to preserve the epitaph for Hadrian I was taken during the pontificate of Pope Hadrian VI, who was closely allied to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, precisely because it recalled the earlier partnership between Hadrian I and Charlemagne. It also shows how the mood towards the old basilica and its monuments changed after the Council of Trent, and how antiquarians in Rome started to record the ancient monuments and to install some of them, including Hadrian’s epitaph, in the new structure, because they served a contemporary political and religious purpose.