The area of Imperial Fora between modern and ancient urban landscape

It would be difficult to suppose the total destruction of a 100.000 sq. m. block, like the one that includes the area of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, for the construction of new public buildings nowadays. On the contrary, it wasn’t par-ticularly hard for Augustus and his successors the edification of monumental huge complexes in the heart of the ancient town, that caused the cancellation of the preexisting topographic arrangement. We can only imagine the impact that the Fora had on the previous urban texture, as we can simply suppose the change in the perception of the spaces after their construction. Of course, nobody has lived long enough to see how the shape of the town has changed during the near-ly two centuries from the edification of the Forum of Caesar (46 B.C.) and the Trajan one (112-113 A.D.), and the following Temple (125-138 A.D.) dedicated to him by Hadrian. But, trying to figure it out, we can understand how from a set full of footpaths, little streets, perhaps almost alleys among public buildings (“full urban”, in urban architectonic terms), it changed into big monumental squares (“urban void”). A heterogeneous landscape made of insulae, domus, workshops, streets, little squares and markets was indeed replaced by the mag-nificence and regularity of the Fora wanted by Caesar.