Modern Rome: from Napoleon to the twenty-first century (original) (raw)
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2019
Ancient cities were sites of social mobility, the coexistence of different ethnic groups, and many cultural activities. Their politics directly involved citizens. This does not seem to be the case for contemporary cities, especially those in southern Italy. There many small and medium-sized towns are no longer attractive to young people, social life is inert, and cultural activities are almost entirely absent. The Ancient Cities project stems from reflections on the contrast between ancient and contemporary cities and aims to suggest new models for social, cultural, and civic development. N. Andrade, C. Marcaccini, G. Marconi, D. Violante (eds).
GROMA, 2018
Spazi pubblici e dimensione politica nella città romana: funzioni, strutture, utilizzazione (Public Spaces and political dimensions in the Roman city: functions, structures, use) is the final product of two international meetings which took place between March and October 2015, the first in Clermont-Ferrand, the last in Bologna. The meetings' main topic was public life and political administration in Western Roman cities. The aim of the encounters was to attempt a multidisciplinary approach to the research on public urban spaces. For that purpose, two basic lines of study were followed. One is related to the school of ancient topography of Bologna University, which can claim great scholars like Arturo Solari, Nereo Alfieri and Guido Achille Mansuelli, while the other, more historical, is linked to the Clermont-Ferrand University tradition and the research program led by Mareille Cébeillac-Gervasoni, to whose memory the book is dedicated.
An Extract from "Modern Rome: From Napoleon to the Twenty- First Century"
Modern Rome: From Napoleon to the Twenty-First Century, 2018
Italo Insolera (1929–2012) was a key figure among Italian urban planners and historians. After fifty-seven years and fifteen editions and reprints in Italy, his classic, ground-breaking work in the field of historical urban studies is now published in English. A masterful, fluent narrative leads the reader through the last two centuries in the history of the Eternal City, capital of the Papal State, then of the united Italy, first under the monarchy and subsequently the republic. Rome’s chaotic growth and often ineffective urban planning, almost invariably overpowered by building speculation, saw but few short interludes of sound administration: Napoleon’s reign, Pianciani’s and Nathan’s stints as mayors, the first years of left-wing rule (1976–81). Then came the alarming and still relevant developments of the late decades of the twentieth century, when urban planning seems to have been utterly defeated. Insolera points out in desolate accusation that any “radical change becomes impossible when ideology has been renounced as a provider of aims and instruments. And I must remind those who maintain that planning is unnecessary that it is so only for the ruling class, but not for the others.” Despite the general pessimistic tone, the book ends by indicating Culture and Art as the key elements from which future Rome may eventually draw new reinvigorating life and meaning. Multi-ethnicity should be one pillar (600,000 immigrants from all over the world, a source of fresh energy from the social, cultural and economic standpoints, live in a city that was essentially cosmopolitan throughout its history). The other pillar should be the enhancement of an unequalled archaeological heritage—still unknown and buried for a large part—with the ancient Appian Way as its spine and the Fora all the way to the the Capitoline Hill as its urban appendage.
Urbanism and Elites – Rome and the Cities of Italy (2nd Century BC – 1st Century AD): an Overview
Articol apărut în Revista CICSA, Serie Nouă, Anul I, 2015, ISSN 2457 – 3809 ISSN–L 2457 – 3809, pp. 52-72. This article brings up for discussion the urban manifestation in the Italian Peninsula, during the end of the Republic and beginning of the Principate, as well as the importance of the rural space in the definition and the evolution of urban planning. Local elites play a defining role as regards urban space because they are involved, to a lesser or higher extent (depending on the time and area), in the construction of public buildings. Also, urban development directly affects the elites causing changes in terms of their way of referring to the urban space. The degree of building development throughout the territory of Italy is not uniform. As a matter of fact, a different level and pace of public buildings constructions is observed between the regions in Italy. Furthermore, the article presents and briefly discusses the most important ideas and work assumptions which have marked the research at the end of the twentieth-century, with regard to urbanity in the Roman antiquity.
Historians of late medieval and renaissance Italy have long seen the fourteenth century as a dramatic period of upheaval and transformation. Yet despite the fact that Rome has long fascinated scholars, the city's fourteenth-century history is often given short shrift. Only the dazzling figure of Cola di Rienzo consistently draws scholarly attention, resulting in his somewhat exaggerated role in Roman political history. With important exceptions, Anglophone scholars primarily interested in the Italian Renaissance have traditionally begun their histories in the mid-fifteenth century with the result that fourteenth-century Rome is largely passed over. The Avignon Papacy, 1309-1377, is seen as a period of abandonment and ruin.