From the first faltering steps of town-planning in Rome to Hadrian's Villa. The book present definitively broadens the scope of the "History of Italian Architecture" series.
From the first faltering steps of town-planning in Rome to Hadrian’s Villa. Two of the world’s greatest experts on ancient architecture have come up with a book that covers the entire history of the city, from the foundation of Rome to the time when it reached its zenith, resulting in monuments which have helped to shape Western culture. Top international scholars were involved in the project. The book they helped to write, and which we now present, definitively broadens the scope of the “History of Italian Architecture” series. It is the prelude to other books which, in years to come, will guide readers through the centuries between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the 15th century. The chapters of the book leave no stone unturned with regard to the research conducted by von Hesberg and Zanker. The first chapters about the first efforts at town-planning are followed by essays about the Rome of Julius Caesar and Augustus, the great basilicas (of Maxentius, Emilia and Julia), the theater of Marcellus and the Coliseum, and the Pantheon. In addition to these, other chapters explain how the various Fora came to be built and transformed in order to assume the layout we know today; how the city was organized; where the residential areas were, their shops and public places, the streets that crossed them; how the various services were organized which made it possible to live in the city; how the cult areas were distributed and organized and the rituals that marked the pace of public and private life. The final part of the book is devoted to memory, in other words, the ways in which the story told in this book continues to influence our relationship with past time and the time in which we live, once it becomes part of the ‘modern cult of ruins’.