The period covered in this chapter, from the death of Pope John VIII in 882 until the beginnings of the papal reform movement in the mid 11th century, has traditionally been treated as the blackest of the early medieval ‘Dark Ages’ at Rome. The perspective is understandable, and not entirely wrong. The written sources decline markedly in quality and quantity from the second half of the 9th century, while the few 10th-century narratives that survive tend to present the Roman scene in bleak terms. Historians of art and architecture have had still less to go on. Not a single monumental edifice survives from the years 882–1046. As far as we know, in fact, not a single really monumental edifice was built for two centuries after the fortified circuit erected circa 880 by John VIII around the peri-urban nucleus at St. Paul’s