Insegnamento
ANCIENT TOPOGRAPHY
Docente
LUISA MIGLIORATI
Successful students will gain knowledge about the most important monuments of the city of Rome and will be able to identify and read ancient monuments in Rome’s Campus Martius as belonging to a whole urban plan, make links between historical events and building activities, connect Roman widespreading policy to the road-system and land organization.
The course will provide an outline of the development of Rome, including a detailed discussion of its defensive system and water-supply. Campus Martius district will be presented in detail. The discussion of the ancient road-system will involve Roman Italy land organization, comparing land management between Roman antiquity and today's reality
The video-lessons cover the following topics:
- An introduction to ancient Topography
- The rising of Rome
- Rome walls through centuries
- Rome Aqueducts
- The regions of Augustan Rome
- The regions of Augustan Italy
- Roman road-system
- Land use planning
- Campus Martius
- Cartography
1) Claridge A., Rome. An Oxford archaeological guide, Oxford 2010 (Oxford University Press), pp. 1-62
2) Coarelli F., Rome and Environs. An archaeological guide, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2014 (University of California Press): Introduction; City Walls; Campus Martius; Via Appia; Eastern Environs: Viae Latina, Praenestina, Labicana, Tiburtina, Northern Environs: Viae Salaria, Nomentana, Flaminia, Cassia, Western Environs: Viae Aurelia, Campana, Ostiensis, Aqueducts; Appendix.
3) Favro D., The urban image of Augustan Rome, Cambridge 1996 (Cambridge University Press): chapters 3, 4.
4) Packer J.E., Plurima et amplissima opera: parsing Flavian Rome, in Boyle A.J., Dominik W.J. (eds), Flavian Rome, Leiden Boston 2003 (Brill), pp.167-198.
5) Dilke O.A.W., The Roman land surveyors: an introduction to the agrimensores, Newton Abbot 1971 (David and Charles), chapters 1, 5,6.
6) Wiseman T.P., Roman republican road-building, in PBSR XXXVIII, 1970, pp.122-152 (only pp. 126-140).
7)https://formaurbis.stanford.edu/
-Further additional readings (optional):
1) Richardson jr. L., A new topographical dictionary of Ancient Rome, Baltimore 1992 (John Hopkins University Press)
2) L. Migliorati, Qualche osservazione sulla Forma Urbis severiana, in J. Turchetto, Michele Asolati (a cura di), Paesaggi in movimento. Ricerche dedicate a Guido Rosada, Padova 2017, pp. 25-40. ISBN 9788869380754
The teaching activity and learning process is based on the combination of:
1) 34 video-lectures (the professor presents the course contents, in a way similar to classroom frontal teaching, supported by slides).
2) Individual study
3) Interactive activity: preparation of a short essay that will be revised by the professor; e-tivity about the Topography of Campus Martius.
For the learning of the discipline, video-lectures and other teaching materials are available to students on the web page of the course.
Professor and tutor will assist the students during the entire academic year through e-mail correspondence and, at the student's request, video-reception (dates and times to be agreed in advance with the professor and the tutor).
Students will self-evaluate their level of learning and their knowledge of Ancient Topography by answering to a number of questions (available on the web page).
The evaluation will consist in an oral exam (questions concerning general and specific topics addressed during the lessons; recognition/description of monuments, roads, land management analysed in the lessons).
The elaboration of a short essay concerning a choice subject among those discussed during the course and the participation to interactive activities (Topo-walk in Campus Martius) are strongly recommended and will be taken into account in the final evaluation (see above, 4).
The acquired knowledge and competencies will allow the graduates to be employed as professional experts in a wide range of potential institutions, such as those connected to education, research, cultural heritage management, protection and valorisation, e.g. museums; public administrations; academic entities; organisations working in the field of literature, translation, publishing and editing, inter-cultural activities etc.