This edition of Ferdinand Gregorovius' "History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages" is based on the second revised edition of the English translation and matches the original page-for-page — and footnote-for-footnote — for accuracy of citation and is entirely reset for modern readability.

Volume VIII comprises 2 parts. Part 1 includes an introduction to Gregorovius and his work by David S. Chambers of the Warburg Institute, London, and Book Thirteen, chapters 1-4 of Gregorovius’ History.

Book Thirteen covers the years 1421 to 1503. It treats the Renaissance; Martin V, Eugenius IV, and the Conciliar movement; the mercenaries Fortebraccio and Sforza; Cardinal Vitelleschi and Ludovico Scarampo, tyrants of Rome; Stefano Porcaro and the Republic; Nicholas V, the Council of Basle, the Jubilee of 1450; the rise of the Borgia; Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini becomes Pope Pius II; the Humanists in Rome; the Tiburziani; the crusade against the Turks; the Caraffa, Riario, Rovere, the Medici; the Orsini and Colonna in the Renaissance; Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII; Roderigo Borgia becomes Alexander VI; Cesare Borgia; Charles VIII of France invades Italy. It also treats Italy after Charles VIII’s invasion; Alexander VI and the Papal States; Caesar and Lucrezia Borgia; the Jubilee of 1500; the Colonna and Orsini; Louis XII of France invades Italy; the Renaissance in Rome: the Vatican Library, printing, philology; Poggio, Bruni, Filelfo, Beccadelli and Valla; Greek studies: Chrysoloras, George of Trebizond, Theodore of Gaza, Cardinal Bessarion; destruction of the monuments; epigraphy and archaeology; the historians and biographers: Biondo, Pius II, Ammanati, Vespasiano, Manetti, Platina, Infessura; poets and playwrights; theater and spectacle; the Academies; architecture, sculpture and the decorative arts; painting; the city of Rome surveyed by region c. 1500.