Trace and Aura The Recurring Lives of St. Ambrose of Milan

From one of the foremost medievalists of our time, a groundbreaking work on history and memory that goes well beyond the life of this influential saint.
 
Elected bishop of Milan by popular acclaim in 374, Ambrose went on to become one of the four original Doctors of the Church. There is much more to this book, however, than the captivating story of the bishop who baptized Saint Augustine in the fourth century. Trace and Aura investigates how a crucial figure from the past can return in different guises over and over again, in a city that he inspired and shaped through his beliefs and political convictions. His recurring lives actually span more than ten centuries, from the fourth to the sixteenth.

In the process of following Ambrose’s various reincarnations, Patrick Boucheron draws compelling connections between religion, government, tyranny, the Italian commune, Milan’s yearning for autonomy, and many other aspects of this fascinating relationship between a city and its spiritual mentor who strangely seems to resist being manipulated by the needs and ambitions of those in power.

Patrick Boucheron is a renowned French historian. He previously taught medieval history at the École normale supérieure and the University of Paris, and is currently a professor of history at the Collège de France. He is the author of twelve books, including Machiavelli: The Art of Teaching People What to Fear, and the editor of five, including France in the World, which became a bestseller in France.
 
Willard Wood has translated more than twenty-five books from the French. He is a recipient of the Lewis Galantière Award for Literary Translation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Translation.
 
Lara Vergnaud’s translations include Yamen Manai’s The Ardent Swarm and Ahmed Bouanani’s The Hospital, as well as texts by Joy Sorman, Zahia Rahmani, and Scholastique Mukasonga, among others. She is the recipient of two PEN/Heim Translation Grants and a French Voices Grand Prize, and has been long-listed for the National Translation Award.