The perception of ancient monuments in an urban context: the case of the Imperial Fora in Rome

The aspect of a modern city is the result of a process of transformation and evolution of its elements over centuries: the growth of the city, in connection with the evolution of the society, creates over long time spans dynamics of urban fabrics that lead old and new buildings to live together. Modern cities result therefore from the stratification of layers from different periods: each of them had its own ruins, its own past and its own way of perceiving the ruins from the past. The present research deals with the main question of the perception of ancient ruins in the city of Rome and in particular on the area of the Imperial Fora between the 16th and the 19th century. The interest is in particular in the role that ruins had for those people who lived, worked or travelled in the area previously occupied by the Imperial Fora , where a dense district developed over the ruins between the 16th and the 19th century. Since the specific interest is on the perception that people living in the city had of ruins and ancient monuments, the research is centred on the analysis of written sources, with a focus on topographical descriptions, guidebooks, and archival sources. In this framework, the present research investigates how people living in the district perceived, approached and referred to the ruins still visible in the district, as well as the ways in which transformation of the urban setting affected and changed the perception which artists, scholars, travellers and inhabitants had of the ruins.