The construction date of the ‘Servian’ wall and its layout in the riverside area between the Aventine and the Capitol are the two main questions addressed in this article. The interlocking topographical problems were addressed in 1988 by Filippo Coarelli, whose interpretation has become the generally accepted orthodoxy. But not all the difficulties have been solved, and with Coarelli's recent return to the subject a fresh examination of the evidence may be helpful. Careful attention is given here to stories of early Rome that involve the walls and gates, as reported in Livy, Dionysius and Plutarch; they are not, of course, taken as authentic evidence for the time of the alleged events, but as indicating what was taken for granted when the stories were first composed. New suggestions are made about a revision of the line of the city wall in 212 BC and the consequent restructuring of two important gates, the Porta Carmentalis and the Porta Trigemina; the mysterious ‘Porta Triumphalis’ is discussed separately in an appendix.

The extensive traces of Roman centuriation and its associated farms identified from aerial photographs near Lucera, ancient Luceria, in the plain of northern Apulia, have generally been attributed to the Gracchan agrarian reforms of the 130s/120s BC. However, the dating of these land divisions, on the basis of the excavation of the farms and centuriation roads by John Bradford and Barri Jones in 1949–50 and 1962–3, is of questionable reliability, and their work at Luceria was never properly published. This study reanalyses the scattered records and dating evidence from the excavation of seven farms of Bradford and Jones and three other sites surveyed by Bradford in the ager Lucerinus. This study argues that the farms and associated grids belong to Rome's establishment of a Latin colony at Luceria in 326 or 315/314 BC during the Second Samnite War, and that the farms were abandoned due to the Hannibalic War. This study therefore presents the earliest certain Roman centuriation for a colony, and it observes the devastating impact of Hannibal's invasion and prolonged occupation on landholding in southeastern Italy, which has been doubted in recent work on Italian agrarian history. In no other part of Italy does there exist a coherent group of nearby excavated small-scale farms, which provides new insight into Roman colonization in Apulia and the consequences of the Hannibalic War.

The first casts of the forms of Pompeian victims of the AD 79 eruption of Mt Vesuvius were successfully achieved under the directorship of Giuseppe Fiorelli in 1863. To date, 104 individuals have been cast by restorers and archaeologists during the course of excavation. The methods used to obtain these casts were not well documented. It was always assumed that plaster or lime cement was merely poured into voids which preserved the impression of organic remains buried in the ash that covered the site during the catastrophe. It was also assumed that the undisturbed skeletal remains of victims were encased within the casts. The initial aim of the Pompeii Cast Project was to study these bones to build on and test the results of an earlier study of the large sample of Pompeian human remains that were disarticulated by post-excavation activities. Apart from providing information about the people who did not manage to escape the eruption, the project aimed to challenge previous interpretations of the lives and activities of these victims that were solely based on superficial inspection and circumstantial evidence.

Twenty-six casts were subjected to CT scanning or X-ray analysis in 2015. The results were unexpected. It was clear that the casts had been considerably manipulated. Bones were often removed prior to casting, and other elements had been introduced. This ongoing project has now been expanded to establish how these casts were achieved, to better understand nineteenth- and twentieth-century archaeological and restoration practice.

Analyses of writing culture in tenth-century Rome have been impeded by an absence of manuscripts and documents that can be assigned unquestionably to scriptoria in the city. This paper will examine the possibility that one such document has hitherto been hiding in plain sight, as it were: the dower charter given by Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu on the occasion of their marriage in St Peter's on 14 April 972. Usually considered to be ‘Ottonian’, rather than ‘Italian’ or ‘Roman’, this document nevertheless states explicitly that it was undertaken at the Roman church of Santi Apostoli, and this possibility is assessed in light of what is known about that church, the Via Lata region and their connections to the foremost noble family in the city.

The Pitti crystal column, preserved at the Uffizi Museum, is one of the most refined glyptic objects of the Renaissance age. Owing to its decorative system on a miniature scale, the significance of many of its scenes has remained unclear, and hence, as a consequence, so have its function, iconological message, the meaning of its all'antica style, and its intended recipient. Using detailed images of each engraved scene, this paper shows how the decorative system of the artefact (originally a mirror) is related to King Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). The entire decoration was designed to eulogize Philip II, and especially the Battle of Saint-Quentin (1557), and his consequent control over some Italian lands (Milan, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia) after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). The paper investigates the reasons why Trajan's Column was chosen as an inspirational model for the Pitti column and how such an ancient model was re-elaborated and renewed through the combination of other elements that came from a wider antiquarian all'antica repertoire. In this way, it is possible to show that this valuable artefact is a clear example of how the use of all'antica style in the Renaissance was not purely referencing a glorious past, but was adapted to the use of the object itself.

Il presente testo nasce da alcune considerazioni compiute nel corso della totale revisione dell'opera edita e manoscritta di Antonio Bosio e si focalizza, in senso più ampio, sul fenomeno della nascita dell'archeologia cristiana nel corso del XVI secolo. Partendo da alcuni spunti storici offerti appunto dall'opera di Bosio, vengono presentate alcune vicende relative al cantiere della basilica di San Pietro durante la seconda metà del Cinquecento, testimoniate soprattutto da Tiberio Alfarano. L'obiettivo è quello di riconsiderare il ruolo degli scavi e dei lavori architettonici della Basilica Vaticana nella nascita dell'archeologia cristiana, qualche anno prima dell'accidentale scoperta della catacomba anonima di via Anapo, evento ad oggi considerato l'inizio della disciplina.

Sin dai primi studi sul cantiere e sul processo costruttivo delle architetture antiche, esempi storicamente ben documentati di età medievale e moderna sono stati presi come riferimento e termine di paragone, al fine di comprendere più approfonditamente l'industria delle costruzioni nell'antica Roma. Questo contributo riflette circa la possibilità di utilizzare due casi di studio parzialmente simili per dimensioni, ubicazione e tecniche costruttive: la Basilica di San Pietro, di età rinascimentale e barocca, in comparazione con l'antico complesso di Domiziano, estensione dei Palazzi Flavi sul Palatino. I primi risultati, che si iscrivono in un progetto di studio sul Complesso domizianeo, aggiungono nuovi elementi alla ricostruzione teorica del cantiere e del ciclo costruttivo. Si analizzano diversi aspetti di questi due progetti architettonici di grandi dimensioni (XXL structures) – la committenza, la forza lavoro, l'approvvigionamento dei materiali da costruzione, l'allestimento del cantiere – evidenziando analogie e differenze, nel tentativo di ovviare alle lacune nella documentazione antica.

The habit of observing and recording carefully, in words and in drawing, the works of God in nature and of man in art made travel essential to the process of continual rediscovery which characterizes the work of John Ruskin, causing him to repeatedly redraw his map of Europe. In 1840–1, the young man's Evangelical upbringing and antipathy for the classical inhibited his response to Rome, which remained peripheral to the monumental volumes of the mid-century. Shifting religious views and studies of ancient myth prepared the way for two revelatory visits to Rome in the early 1870s. In Oxford lectures, Ruskin read in Botticelli's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel syntheses of oppositions between schools of art, between the natural and the spiritual, Greek and Christian cultures, Catholic faith and Reforming energies. He also came to feel the ‘power of the place’ in holy places of early Christianity and in continuities of peasant life. Rome is therefore relocated as ‘the central city of the world’, but modern realities menaced this vision. What had been an impoverished backwater was undergoing massive redevelopment and industrialization as the capital of a newly unified state with international ambitions. From these changes, commented on in his monthly pamphlet, Fors Clavigera, Ruskin extracted severe lessons for Victorian Britain. This article is about the ways in which the two types of change interact.

Drawing on articles published in the Corriere della Sera, Il Popolo d'Italia and La Stampa, this study examines a case of uxoricide that occurred in 1923, focusing on the way in which the murderer and his lawyers were able to convince both the general public and the jury that the murderer's jealous nature was a mental illness, leading to him avoiding a prison sentence. The victim, the murderer's wife, was depicted as a physically attractive woman of dubious sexual reputation. Such characteristics were deemed to have triggered her husband's jealousy, thus rendering her culpable, the agent of her own homicide. In place of a picture of uxoricide in revenge for tarnished honour, the murderer portrayed himself as the powerless victim of love and jealousy. Through a close analysis of the strategy adopted by the defendant's lawyers, this article shows how centuries-old gendered stereotypes and ideas of respectability affected the law in action and permeated early twentieth-century Italian society.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (June 2020 – July 2021) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and newspaper reports.