Monuments and Histories: Ideas and Images of Antiquity in Some Descriptions of Rome

The Rome of the Mirabilia is a Rome without inhabitants, populated only by hundreds of monuments. It is not a living city, but a 'history' book. At the opposite pole from the Rome 'without uncertainties' of the Mirabilia, where everything can be identified and reconstructed, is Master Gregory's Rome, a supernatural space which can neither be fully described nor entirely explained. While the Mirabilia and Master Gregory started from monuments to reconstruct historical events - the books providing only additional details - the process was reversed in the 14th century. The Rome of Giovanni Cavallini is a Roma where places become symbols, and names play a crucial role as a guarantee of historical continuity. The continuum between past and present can only be uncovered by recovering the original names and reconstructing their evolution. Names where a philological concern which became a historiographical tool: the thread which tied monuments and histories, but also ancient and modern Rome.

Studio dei testi che descrivono Roma dai Mirabilia alle origini dell'Umanesimo, che mostra come l'idea e l'immagine della città si evolvessero in linea con l'evoluzione della cultura e si influenzassero reciprocamente in un rapporto di causa-effetto.