The message's genesis. Graphical Analysis and generating geometries of monumental inscriptions in Rome's University City

Various studies have investigated the enduring connections between writing and power. As well, the relationships between architecture and power—between city and power—that testify to the functionality of an architectural work or urban space in transmitting a message have also been addressed. To understand these phenomena fully, it is first necessary to evaluate the way in which they occupy space and especially the relationship established with the buildings on which they are situated. However, it is also necessary to analyze them carefully with design tools, that is, using procedures based on rigorous geometrical/projection fundamentals and on geometrical/proportional analysis. This is in order to accurately understand the formal characteristics, i.e., the graphical/geometrical characteristics, to reveal the means of design and to deeply understand the meaning. This is what the present paper aims to do by adopting a paradigmatic case study: some of the build-ings in Rome’s University City, which was inaugurated on 31 October 1935. It is an emblematic case which can be defined, according to Petrucci’s definition [5], as the expression of an intentional ‘program of graphic display’ realized by direct will of the power.