Synopsis
Following the defeat of Napoleon, visitors returned to Rome, recognising once again the city as an oasis of civilisation. Beginning with Pope Pius VII, who oversaw the return of stolen art and antiquities from France, nineteenth century pontiffs took great pride in, and care of the city’s monuments. The systematic excavation, consolidation and analysis of the ancient sites, including the Roman Forum, accelerated. Simultaneously, with the unification of Italy as a kingdom, and with Rome as its new capital from 1870, the most rapid urban transformation in the city’s history gathered pace. This culminated in the twentieth century with a daring new approach to the classical language of architecture and urban planning as the Fascist era of the 1920s and ‘30s sought to recreated the achievements of past emperors. James Hill concludes his series on the urban history of Rome tracing the changes which provided contemporary archaeology with extraordinary opportunities, presented against the dramatic political context as Rome moved from its status as capital of a Papal State to that of the new Kingdom of Italy, its future conditioned by both Fascism and the emergence of the modern Republic of Italy.