Lecture 1 - The Roman Question: Excavation & Foundation

When Pope Pius VII returned to Rome in 1814 from Napoleonic ‘captivity’, he initiated the transformation of the city’s ancient monuments, clearing away not only the colonising flora and fauna, but also the domestic buildings and churches that had smothered triumphal arches, theatres and temples in past centuries. The Roman Forum began to be systematically excavated as pioneering archeologists traced the topography of the ancient city. Newly-discovered antiquities emerged from the earth as Rome’s status turned from that of a localised papal capital into a unified and regal one. The construction of new avenues, widened thoroughfares, enlarged piazzas and the civic buildings associated with central government altered the city forever. Simultaneously, a wider ‘Roman Question’ emerged as successive popes, no longer ruling from the Quirinal Palace, but in self-exile within the walls of the Vatican, observed the Rome they had presided over for centuries changing all around them.