The stretch of the Aurelianic Walls from the Porta Latina to the Porta Appia comprises twelve towers linked bv curtain walls with covered walkways. The surviving state of the monument is described in detail. The individual phases (from AD 275 to the present) are distinguished through the analysis of their construction techniques, archive drawings and photographs of vanished sections, papal coats of arms, and inscriptions (in pencil or graffito) recording more recent events. When the entire circuit was doubled in height during the Honorian phase (AD 401–3), the floors of the towers were built at a considerably higher level than the rampart walkways, so as to exploit fully the type of siege machinery (halhstae) located in the towers' upper chambers. The Honorian loopholes, for the use of archers, reveal a long and complex history: undergoing modifications during construction, they were subsequently blocked to prevent the illegal traffic of goods (and the avoidance of customs dues), and were finally reopened and modified once again for the defence of papal Rome. The modern restorations of 1930–67 are examined critically. The need for immediate restoration and sustained maintenance to guarantee the monument's structural integrity is now clear. It is to be hoped that a direct link (with visitor access) will be provided with the ‘Museo delle Mura’, which was set up in the neighbouring Porta Appia in 1970.

This article traces the extraordinary architectural production of the Roman branch of the Istituto Case Popolari (Institute of Public Housing, ICP) during the period between 1925 and 1930. This was the most prolific and creative period in the history of the Institute, delivering a rich portfolio of distinctive public housing projects in and around Rome with modest means and against the backdrop of a severe housing crisis. It was also the period when a single architect, Innocenzo Sabbatini, left his creative mark on the most significant of the Institute's executed projects. Under Sabbatini's creative lead, the ICP sought to advance a distinctive, coherent vision for public housing while also producing a singular architectural language that was both modern and unmistakably ‘situated’ in the traditions and the ambience of Rome. I examine the three arguably most innovative ICP projects of this period bearing Sabbatini's signature: the Albergo Rosso in Garbatella; the so-called Casa del Sole in Tiburtino; and the unrealized Trionfale Nuovo project. Through these three projects, I seek to trace a fascinatingly singular Roman road to architectural modernism that pre-dated the ‘heroic’ phase of razionalismo in Rome during the early 1930s but has been largely redacted from the narratives of modernist architecture.

Alcuni murali medievali sopravvivono nell'abbazia cistercense delle Tre Fontane a Roma, o sono conosciuti da disegni, nell'edificio soprastante l'ingresso, nel nartece della chiesa di SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio e nell'area orientale del chiostro. Studi recenti hanno discusso lo stile e l'iconografia di questi dipinti o hanno analizzato l'architettura della chiesa medievale e di parti del monastero. Questo articolo prende in considerazione i murali nel loro contesto architettonico. Le date degli affreschi nell'edificio sovrastante l'ingresso vengono chiarite dallo studio della muratura e da altre caratteristiche dell'edificio. I dipinti del nartece vanno associati alla storia e ai santi patroni dell'abbazia. I murali nella stanza al di sopra dell'attuale sacrestia riflettono la probabile funzione di quello spazio, originariamente come parte della cappella dell'abate. I murali finora creduti essere stati dipinti nella parte superiore di un muro esterno del dormitorio sembrano rientrare in due stanze del piano sottostante; di conseguenza viene suggerito che esse servissero originariamente a decorare la parte superiore delle mura interne di quelle stanze. Infine alcuni suggerimenti vengono presentati a proposito dei patrocinatori di questi lavori e dell'attività costruttiva della fine del tredicesimo secolo.

King Charles II's first illegitimate son, the little-known Jacques de La Cloche, married a lady in Naples and had a posthumous son, born in 1669 and known as Don Giacomo Stuardo. Although his father was illegitimate and he himself a Catholic, Stuardo hoped that he might one day become King of England. The Glorious Revolution resulted in opposition between supporters of the Protestant Succession to the British thrones and supporters of the exiled Catholic Stuarts, James II and then his son James III. When the Protestant Queen Anne was succeeded by the unpopular Hanoverian George I in 1714, James III was still unmarried and had no children, so Stuardo hoped that James might recognize him as the Jacobite heir. When James married and had two sons, Stuardo hoped that his cousin would at least receive him as a Stuart prince. All his attempts to meet James III and secure recognition were unsuccessful, and he died disappointed and in poverty in about 1752. In the tercentenary of the Hanoverian Succession, enough archival information finally has emerged to provide a study of the life of this alternative claimant to the British thrones.

The article begins by looking at the body of written and visual material that was produced on the colonial world in the interwar years. It considers various reading strategies that can be applied to this body of work and how it can be addressed through post-colonial criticism. The article argues that the work of the sociologist Peter Berger offers a series of insights into the way in which this material represents the social world, and the notions of collective identity and alterity that are central to that world. In the light of Berger's thinking on the socially constructed nomos, the essay examines some of the definitions of the relation between metropolitan and subject communities that recur in writings on the reality of colonialism. The essay explores the relationship of an individual author to the nomos of his or her time by looking in detail at one text: the journalist Ciro Poggiali's diary of the time he spent in Ethiopia in the immediate aftermath of the Italian conquest of the country. It examines how Poggiali's diary can be interpreted as a complex account of how the coerciveness of the social world is experienced by individual consciousness and how its definitions of racial and cultural belonging can be appropriated or challenged. The essay concludes by arguing that the analysis of strategies for defining identity and otherness within the Italian colonial context can be taken further by working within a comparative framework.

The number of Roman sarcophagi without explicit Christian iconography conventionally dated to the fourth century is not commensurate with any reasonable estimate of the number of well-to-do pagans. This article explores several possible explanations for the anomaly. One approach would be to attempt to correct the archaeological record by finding errors in the religious classification of monuments that exaggerate the Christian corpus, adding non-Christian sarcophagi that have escaped published inventories, or establishing a systematic misdating of pagan sarcophagi. Alternatively, the preserved monuments could be taken as an accurate reflection of original production, the shortfall implying some change in commemorative habits specific to non-Christians. The author concludes that neither of these theories is likely to reduce the pagan sarcophagus deficit substantially. Instead, the shortfall is ascribed mainly to differential rates of preservation. This hypothesis is consistent with certain medieval practices of reuse that suggest a higher probability of survival for antique sarcophagi bearing Christian imagery.

Scholarship on the fourteen Augustan regions of Rome has tended to focus on their political and topographical significance. As a result, evidence for their social meaning and their impact on the mindsets and practices of the city's administrators and rulers has been under-exploited. This article seeks to address this lacuna. It begins by reviewing the history of Rome's regions and asking how and where the boundaries of the Augustan regions were recorded, before moving on to consider the impact of the regions on the Romans’ understanding and experiences of their city. This includes examining the evidence for bottom-up social identification with the regions, despite their top-down original creation. The paper also looks at the administrators who worked with the regions (regional magistrates and the food, water and fire services), arguing that the conceptual framework which the regions provided began to shape their working practices. Finally, it demonstrates the existence of a rhetoric of consistent provision across all fourteen regions, propagated especially by the emperors. The findings across all of these areas reveal that it is essential to take the regions and their impact into account when attempting to understand the topography of the city and the lives of its inhabitants.

February 2021 saw the coincidentally simultaneous publication of two important books about the Augustan Palatine: Dal mostro al principe by Andrea Carandini and Paolo Carafa, and Il complesso di Augusto sul Palatino by Patrizio Pensabene, Patrizio Fileri and Enrico Gallocchio. Since Carandini and Pensabene have been for decades the most significant archaeological investigators of the Palatine, these two major works of synthesis offer a timely opportunity to assess the historical contribution of archaeology in the 60 years since Gianfilippo Carettoni first identified ‘the house of Augustus’. That contribution has been surprisingly disappointing, and this article tries to explain why.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (in the second half of 2018 and the first half of 2019) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and newspaper reports.