The Lives of a Roman Neighborhood

Tracing the Imprint of the Past, from 500 BCE to the Present

Author: Paul W. Jacobs, II

Takes one of the world's longest continuously occupied urban neighborhoods and explores the trace of early development on the future space.

This book is for readers interested in Rome's history, urban development, and environmental studies. It explores a Rome neighbourhood's development over 2500 years, how new development is drawn to a space notwithstanding environmental challenges, and how the memory and imprint of the earlier neighbourhood persists through later alterations.

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Summary

Takes one of the world's longest continuously occupied urban neighborhoods and explores the trace of early development on the future space.

Description

In this book, Paul Jacobs traces the history of a neighborhood situated in the heart of Rome over twenty-five centuries. Here, he considers how topography and location influenced its long urban development. During antiquity, the forty-plus acre, flood-prone site on the Tiber's edge was transformed from a meadow near a crossroads into the imperial Circus Flaminius, with its temples, colonnades, and a massive theater. Later, it evolved into a bustling medieval and early modern residential and commercial district known as the Sant'Angelo rione. Subsequently, the neighborhood enclosed Rome's Ghetto. Today, it features an archaeological park and tourist venues, and it is still the heart of Rome's Jewish community. Jacobs' study explores the impact of physical alterations on the memory of lost topographical features. He also posits how earlier development may be imprinted upon the landscape, or preserved to influence future changes.

Critic Reviews

'… Jacobs traces, over the course of 2,500 years, the “tenacious life on the Tiber's edge” of a compact, low-lying area on the river's east bank … In its impressive chronological sweep and relentless problem-solving approach, [his] book offers the most ambitious case study yet of urban process in Rome.' T. Corey Brennan, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Paul Jacobs, II, an independent scholar, has spent extensive time in Rome and focuses on Rome's topographical development. He is the co-author of Campus Martius – The Field of Mars in the Life of Ancient Rome (2014). His article on Cola di Rienzo, Renaissance Studies (2018), is set in the Sant'Angelo rione, the subject of this study.