The transformation of the Flavian Amphitheater during its original function and in subsequent uses.
[Rota Colisei / The valley of the Colosseum across the centuries] The theme of this publication is the transformation of the Flavian Amphitheater, during its original function and in subsequent uses. Particular attention has been paid to the delicate moment of transition from one function to the next, between the period of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, when the future destiny of the monument began to clearly emerge.
Therefore the book is organized in three separate chapters. The first is on the Colosseum during its original use as an amphitheater, reconstructing the historical knowledge that has been assembled and indicating paths of future research.
The second approaches a new problem: the fate of the structure after the last spectacle documented by a source, in 523, traditionally indicated by historians as the year of the “closing” of the amphitheater, though there are other opinions on this matter. At the end of the Gothic Wars the first characteristics of a vast transformation in an extremely vital urban context. The book addresses the issues related to the Valley of the Colosseum, as it is impossible to approach a historical study of the monument without examining its immediate urban surroundings. The third chapter is on the definition Rota Colisei, starting in the 12th century, when this unity of monument and valley was clearly evident in late medieval Rome. The Rota Colisei indicated the administrative urban division from the confines beyond the Valley of the Colosseum. The book offers complete examination of the materials that have emerged from the first late medieval archaeological deposits identified in the amphitheater.