The Falerii Novi Project represents a newly formed archaeological initiative to explore the Roman city of Falerii Novi. The project forms a collaboration of the British School at Rome with a multinational team of partner institutions. Thanks to a rich legacy of geophysical work on both the site and its territory, Falerii Novi presents an exceptional opportunity to advance understanding of urbanism in ancient and medieval Italy. The Falerii Novi Project employs a range of methodologies, integrating continued site-scale survey with new campaigns of stratigraphic excavation, archival research and environmental archaeology. The project aims to present a more expansive and holistic urban history of this key Tiber Valley settlement by focusing on long-run socio-economic processes both within Falerii Novi and as they linked the city to its wider landscape.

This paper uses a Flavian aureus type depicting the aedes Vestae to explore both the ideological and the practical aspects of using coinage to propagate a dynasty. Firstly, we analyse the type from an iconographic perspective and argue that it should not be understood as a simple referent to the building itself, but rather as a complex interplay of different semantic units, intended to convey messages of dynastic harmony and security. Secondly, we use a die study to reconstruct the minting process and use our findings to elucidate the transformation of Roman coin production during the Flavian period. Taken together, the two parts of the paper demonstrate both the importance and the pay-offs of studying Roman coinage holistically, that is, with an integrated approach that combines iconographic and technical analysis. A catalogue of coins considered in the die study is provided as an appendix.

This paper offers a fresh appraisal of the problems of the existence, location and contents of the papal library, and the associated problems of Roman script and Roman book production in the early Middle Ages. The palaeography and codicology of books from Rome, and books possibly produced in Rome, between the sixth and the ninth centuries, are reassessed in the light of current scholarship. This includes a discussion of the possible loss of Roman books originally written on papyrus, and of books in both Latin and Greek. The current archaeological evidence relating to a Lateran library and its location is considered. The implications of the evidence relating to the papal scrinium, archive and library are discussed, with particular reference to the proceedings of the Lateran Council of 649. It is argued that these records actually provide important evidence for the contents and use of the Lateran library in the early Middle Ages. The paper proposes that the papal library had a crucial function as well as a symbolic role in the early Middle Ages as a repository of orthodox and authoritative texts.

La Porta Borgiana di Civita Castellana (Viterbo, Italia), eretta alla fine del XV secolo in onore del cardinale Rodrigo Borgia, venne costruita grazie allo smantellamento di un monumento funerario romano, dal quale venne estratto un insieme di materiali marmorei per decorare l'arco. L'iscrizione sulla porta chiarisce l'origine di tali pezzi, i quali appartenevano alla tomba di Publius Glitius, uno dei protagonisti della congiura di Pisone. Sulla base dello studio dei materiali, spoliati e riutilizzati nella Porta Borgiana e in altri siti del comune di Civita Castellana, nei pressi della città di Falerii Novi, presentiamo un approccio al monumento funerario in questione, fornendo nuovi dati sull'identificazione del personaggio e sulla possibile ubicazione della tomba. Allo stesso tempo, l'analisi della costruzione della Porta Borgiana ha permesso di metterla in relazione con la propaganda politico-ideologica di Rodrigo Borgia, basata, in parte, sull'uso dell'antichità classica, quale strumento di legittimazione dinastica e territoriale.

This paper examines the arrival in Rome of the Portuguese special envoy D. André de Melo e Castro in 1707. It contemplates the circumstances surrounding the selection of his palace, the training of the members of his household, and certain aspects of Roman ceremonial by analysing the account books preserved in the archives of the Palacio Nacional de Ajuda (Lisbon). Until recently, historiography had only cited two palaces as residences of the diplomat during his long stay in Rome (1707–28): the Cavallerini and the Cesarini palaces. However, this study brings to light an earlier residence, the Buratti palace, and looks at the problems associated with the move to that residence, the decoration and furniture expenses, its implications in terms of the ceremonial deployed ad hoc, and the creation of a network of artisans and artists trusted by Melo.

Prior to the acts of demolition pursued in the ventennio to recover and celebrate the heirlooms of antiquity as the simulacra of a fascist restoration of the Roman Empire, a Gothic Revival villa stood atop the Palatine Hill. A transhistorical palimpsest, this edifice incorporated a portion of the imperial palace that was erected for Domitian after his accession to power (AD 81). Through the disclosure of groundbreaking archival documentation, this article reveals that the Gothic Revival mansion, commonly known as ‘Villa Mills’, can be renamed ‘Villa Smith’. It was Robert Smith (1787–1873), a lieutenant-colonel of the East India Company, who embarked on the medievalist makeover rather than the previous owner, a fellow Englishman named Charles Andrew Mills (1770–1846). In spite of an exceptional location in the imperial heart of the Eternal City, knowledge of the nineteenth-century history of the site is very limited and tends to be derived from hearsay and hypothesis, rather than primary information. Drawing on broad textual and iconographical sources, this article aims to fill this gap by reflecting closely upon the relationships in pre-unification Rome between architecture and political and cultural intent, between Italy and Britain, and between modernity and antiquity. After a reconstruction of British presence above the Domus Augustana and an investigation of the person behind the neo-Gothic reworking, the study offers a critical reconsideration of Villa Mills and the character of (Charles Andrew) Mills.

In 1885, during excavations on the southwest slope of the Quirinal Hill, two magnificent Hellenistic bronzes were discovered by Rodolfo Lanciani. Although Lanciani dated the burial of the bronzes to the era of the barbarian attacks on the city of Rome, here it will be argued that the bronzes may have been excavated elsewhere by clandestine diggers and then reburied on the Quirinal slope, in a stash of robbers’ loot. Utilizing newly located archival sources that shed fresh light on the excavation, and interrogating Lanciani's published accounts of it, this paper presents a case study of this small area of the hill. This leads in turn to an investigation of Lanciani's practice as a cartographer in plate XXII of his Forma Urbis Romae where the hillside was subsequently depicted. Plate XXII has a wider relevance for any user of the FUR because a close analysis of this one plate suggests that Lanciani's representation of the southwest Quirinal is dominated by a cartographic rhetoric. This is composed of significant omissions, obfuscations and graphic hierarchies all of which are employed to influence and manipulate the reader. It is argued that plate XXII of Lanciani's map is a persuasive rendering rather than a disinterested record of the ancient structures that were found buried there. This has significance for any reader of the FUR.

The prints, negatives and albums in the British School at Rome's Thomas Ashby Photographic Archive are a rich assortment of materials created by Ashby and his colleagues, such as Agnes and Dora Bulwer. The archive was the natural and spontaneous product of Ashby's personal and working life and it was not until after his death that it was transferred into the public institutional domain. This article investigates the original intention of Ashby's archive, its transfer from a private to public context, and its subsequent evolution and reception. Building on the work of previous BSR staff and scholars, the article looks at Ashby's archive from a fresh perspective, emphasizing the need to consider the archive's original non-public authorial intent, its polyphonic elements, and the diachronic nature of its formation and reception from Ashby's time to the present. Given that images within photographic archives are now regularly viewed as digital objects, this is a timely discussion of the nature of private photographic archives that have been moved into the public domain. It is now more important than ever that archives like Ashby's are acknowledged as entities with detailed and complex histories, and that these histories are taken into account when viewing the individual photographs within the archive.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (July 2022–June 2023) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions and newspaper reports.