Rebuilding St Paul's Outside the Walls

Architecture and the Catholic Revival in the Nineteenth Century

New Hardback Illustrated

Postscript summary

Consecrated in the fifth century, St Paul’s Outside the Walls was built over the tomb of Paul of Tarsus, beyond Rome’s ancient walls. The building was destroyed by fire in 1823, and a contentious debate ensued between those who would replace it with a modern, classical church and those supporting an unprecedented alternative: building a replica of the original basilica. This study follows that reconstruction and the issues it raised – ecclesiastical, aesthetic and architectural – in the decades before the mid-century Catholic revival.

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