Requiem is dedicated to the research of the Roman papal and cardinal tombs of the Early Modern Age between 1417 and 1799. The joint project is prompted by art-historians and historians who have come to set the major focus of their work to unravel the historical testimonies of the sepulchres, which defines less so the past as more so the present, and above all, the future of the ambitioned social elites in Rome.

This databased project is a cooperation between the historical seminar in Fribourg/Switzerland, chair of Prof. Volker Reinhardt and the art-historical seminar in Berlin/ Germany, chair of Prof. Horst Bredekamp. The project is financed by the Fritz Thyssen donation.

Requiem´s major aims result from its twofold historical and art-historical interests:

1. It will provide a data base with the details of all the papal- and cardinal tombs preserved in Rome and its peripheries. The picture data base will contain these informations. The project is working also on a detailed alphabetical list of all the cardinals of the Early Modern Age, which retraces their careers as well as the family and clientele structures. To get a first impression of this concept we refer to the list of cardinals which were appointed under Gregor XV. Ludovisi (see Prosopographie).

2. As a synthesis of the historical and art historical researches there will be published articles on single tombs or topics in their wider contexts. As an exemple of this part of the research we refer temporarily to our text on the tomb of Clemens X. Altieri in St. Peter (see Ergebnisse).