Perspectives on Public Space

in Rome, from Antiquity to the

Present Day

Edited by
Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome,

from Antiquity to the Present Day

This page has been left blank intentionally

Perspectives on Public Space in

Rome, from Antiquity to
the Present Day

Edited by

Gregory Smith
Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning,
Rome Program, Italy
Jan Gadeyne
Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning,
Rome Program, Italy

 Gregory Smith, Jan Gadeyne and the contributors 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
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www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day.
1. Public spaces Italy Rome History. 2. Public spaces Rome. 3. City planning
Italy Rome History. 4. Public spaces Law and legislation Rome. 5. Public
spaces Law and legislation Italy Rome History. I. Smith, Gregory.
II. Gadeyne, Jan.
307.12160945632dc23
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perspectives on public space in Rome, from antiquity to the present day / edited by
Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne.

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Public spaces Italy Rome History. 2. City planning Italy Rome History.
3. Land use, Urban Italy Rome. 4. Rome (Italy) History. I. Smith, Gregory, 195
II. Gadeyne, Jan.
HT169.I84R63944 2013
307.12160945632dc23
2012033539
ISBN
ISBN
ISBN

9781409463696 (hbk)
9781409463702 (ebk-PDF)
9781472404275 (ebk-ePUB)
XV

Contents
List of Illustrations
Presentation: Crossroads in Space and Time
Ali Madanipour
Introduction
Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne

vii
xvii
1

Part I: Antiquity
1

2

Omnis Caesareo cedit labor Amphitheatro, unum pro cunctis

fama loquetur opus (Mart., 1, 78)
Manuel Royo

15

Emperors, Baths, and Public Space: The Imperial Thermae

in Romes Late Antique Landscape
Dallas DeForest

43

Part II: Middle Ages

3

4

Short Cuts: Observations on the Formation of the Medieval

Street System in Rome
Jan Gadeyne

67

Public access, action, and display in Rome of the

later anni mille
Lila Yawn

85

PArt III: Renaissance

5

La Loggia delle Benedizioni at St. Peters in the Quattrocento

and the Visualization of Power
Ioana Jimborean

109

vi

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Marcantonio Colonna and the Victory at Lepanto: The Framing

of a Public Space at Santa Maria in Aracoeli
Paul Anderson

131

SPQR / CAPITOLIVM RESTITVIT: The Renovatio of

the Campidoglio and Michelangelos Use of the Giant Order 157
Tamara Smithers
7

Part IV: Baroque

8

9

From Cattle Market to Public Promenade: Remaking the Forum

in the Seventeenth Century
Jasmine R. Cloud

187

Performance and Politics in the Urban Spaces of

Baroque Rome
Joanna Norman

211

Part V: Modern
10

Public Space as Desire, Dream and History: Freud and Rome 233
Paola Di Cori

11

Political Public Space in Rome from 1870 to 2011

Vittorio Vidotto

251

Part VI: Contemporary

12 Narrating Place: Perspectives on Pier Paolo Pasolinis Rome

Gregory Smith

277

13

The Shape of Public Space: Place, Space, and Junkspace

David Mayernik

301

14

Contemporary Debates on Public Space in Rome

Marco Cremaschi

331

Bibliography

351

Index

391

List of Illustrations
0.1
0.2
0.3
1.1
1.2

1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8

The Roman Forum: A crossroads in space and time

Campidoglio: Temporal connections through
spatial monumentality
The revival of struggle between public and private spheres

xix
xxii
xxv

Rostra, Mundus and Umbilicus Urbis (from Ch. Hlsen,

Foro romano, Roma, 1905)
16
Flavian building activity and main monuments ( Royo drawing):
In black, Vespasian and Titus buildings; 1: Temple of Juppiter
Optimus Maximus; 2: Forum Romanum; 3: Templum Pacis;
4: Templum Divi Claudii; 5: Amphitheatrum Vespasiani
et Titi; 6: Titus Baths; 7: Meta Sudans; 8: Vigna Barberini
terrace (domitianic) and Domus Augustana Domitiana;
9: Atrium Domus Aureae; 10: Horrea; 11: Domus Tiberiana18
Roman Forum under Caesar (underground galleries were used
as in the Colosseum for beasts and gladiators) (from Ch. Hlsen,
Foro romano, Roma, 1905).
20
Roma resurge[n]s ( Royo drawing).
22
Capitol, Forum Romanum and Domus Tiberiana under Nero
(from Perrin, Forum)
26
The axis from Capitol to Vestibulum Domus Neronis (6468 AD)
(from Perrin, Forum).
27
The horrea Vespasiani on the northern slope of the Palatine
( Royo)
29
The imperial buildings all around the Amphitheatre.
1: Amphitheatrum; 2: Titus Baths; 3: Templum Divi Claudii;
4: Ludus Magnus; 5: Armentaria, moneta (?); 6: Curiae veteres;
7: Ludus matutinus; 8: Meta Sudans; 9: Ludus Dacicus;
10: Titus Arch; 11: Trajans Baths; 12: Remains of the
Domus Aurea Neronis (Oppius building); 13: Atrium and
Colossus Neronis; 14: Horrea; 15: Aqua Claudia;
16: Vigna Barberini terrace (domitianic) ( Royo drawing)
30

viii

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

1.9

The location of the Arches of Vespasian, Titus and Domitian

according to Torelli, Culto A: Arcus Titi; B: Arcus Vespasiani;
C: Arcus Domitiani; 1: Templum Pacis; 2: Domus Tiberiana;
3: Vigna Barberini terrace (domitianic); 4: Domus Augustana
Domitiana; 5: Meta Sudans ( Royo drawing)
34
1.10 Arch of Titus and Flavian Meta sudans (in the background)
before its destruction in the 30s (postcard around 1900).
38
1.11 Sestertius of Titus with the Meta (on the left) and the Baths ?
(on the right) ( Royo drawing)
38
1.12 The Meta sudans: back on the right, the Curiae Veteres
and Sacrarium ( Royo)40
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
3.1

5.1
5.2
5.3

Bathing Block, the Baths of Diocletian (after Krencker)

Baths of Diocletian with the enclosure (after Krencker)
Baths of Caracalla with the enclosure (after Krencker)
Bathing block, the Baths of Caracalla (after Krencker)
Reconstruction and cutaway of the Baths of Caracalla
(after Iwanoff )
Reconstruction and cutaway of the Baths of Diocletian
(after Paulin)
The central and southern Field of Mars with the most important
ancient street axes surviving from Antiquity through the
Middle Ages until today (AB, CD, EF, via recta, via flaminia)
and the via delle Botteghe Oscure that originated in the fifth century
(HI) (adapted from Cimino M.G., Nota Santi M., Corso Vittorio
Emanuele II, p. 79).

50
50
52
53
60
61

71

tienne Duprac, The Benediction of the Pope in St Peters Square,

1567 (Inv. 1965:177134 D, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung
Mnchen)112
Maarten van Heemskerck, St. Peters square, 153234 (Inv. 31681,
Albertina, Vienna)
113
Christoph Luitpold Frommel, Reconstruction proposal for the
plan of the project of Pius II for St. Peters square with benediction
loggia and modified stairway (in Christoph L. Frommel, Francesco
del Borgo: Architekt Pius II und Pauls II, I: Der Petersplatz und
weitere rmische Bauten Pius II Piccolomini, Rmisches Jahrbuch
der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 20 (1983))
114

List of Illustrations

5.4

5.5

5.6

6.1

Maarten van Heemskerck, North facade of the transept of

S.Giovanni in Laterano and Aula concilii (Drawing from
Roman Sketchbook, 153236, Inv. 79 D 2, fol. 12 recto
Kupferstichkabinett. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)
Pope Boniface VIII Blessing the People at the First Jubilee from
the Loggia delle Benedizioni of the Lateran Palace (Manuscript
illumination after Giotto, Inv. F 227 inf. foglio 8 verso e 9 recto
Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana Milano/De Agostini
Picture Library)
Emperor Theodosius and sons watching the chariot races, south-east
face relief of the base, obelisk of Theodosius, re-erected around
390, Constantinople (Istanbul) (Bildarchiv Foto Marburg /
Volker Rdel)

Flaminio Boulangier, nave ceiling, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome,

157274. (Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.2 Flaminio Boulangier, frieze, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, 1576.
(Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.3 Arms of Pius V, nave ceiling, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome,
157275. (Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.4 Allegorical Representations of the Roman Comune (SPQR)
and Allied Naval Fleets, nave ceiling, S. Maria in Aracoeli,
Rome, 157275. (Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.5 Turkish Military Standard making Sign of Surrender, nave
ceiling, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, 157275. (Photograph by
Paul Anderson)
6.6 Military Trophies and Spoglia, nave ceiling, S. Maria in
Aracoeli, Rome, 157275. (Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.7 Fulvio Orsini, Declario inscriptionis Laquearii, inscription
above triumphal arch, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome, 1575.
(Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.8 Virgin Mary, central register, nave ceiling, S. Maria in Aracoeli,
Rome, 157275. (Photograph by Paul Anderson)
6.9 Tiburzio Spannocchi and Paolo Tagliacozzo, Porta
San Sebastiano, Sala del Capitano, Palazzo Colonna,
Paliano, 157576. (Photograph: private collection)
6.10 Tiburzio Spannocchi and Paolo Tagliacozzo, Arch of
Constantine, Sala del Capitano, Palazzo Colonna, Paliano,
157576. (Photograph: private collection)

ix

117

119

121
132
136
138
139
139
140
140
142
147
148

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

6.11 Tiburzio Spannocchi and Paolo Tagliacozzo, Colosseum,

Sala del Capitano, Palazzo Colonna at Paliano, 157576.
(Photograph: private collection)
6.12 Tiburzio Spannocchi and Paolo Tagliacozzo, Arch of Septimus
Severus and Triumphal Entrance to the Campidoglio, Sala del
Capitano, Palazzo Colonna at Paliano, 157576. (Photograph:
private collection)
6.13 Tiburzio Spannocchi and Paolo Tagliacozzo, Triumphal Entry
at St. Peters, Sala del Capitano, Palazzo Colonna at Paliano,
157576. (Photograph: private collection)
6.14 View of the faade of S. Maria in Aracoeli. (Photograph
by Paul Anderson)
7.1
7.2

7.3

7.4

7.5
7.6

148

148
151
153

Michelangelo, Campidoglio, Rome. From left to right

Palazzo Nuovo, Palazzo Senatorio, and Palazzo dei Conservatori.
(Photograph by Nick Cloud)
158
Anonymous, Porticus et Palatii Capitolini aspectus accurate
commensuratus studiosorum bonarum artium commoditati
delineates, after Michelangelos designs, published by
Bartolomeo Faleti, Rome, 1568, etching. Part of the
Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae. ( Trustees of
the BritishMuseum)
161
Anonymous, Forma Partis Templi Divi Petri in Vaticano, after
Michelangelos designs, published by Vincenzo Luchino, Rome,
1564, engraving. Part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae.
( Trustees of the British Museum)
162
Roman Imperial Coin, (obverse) Head of Domitian and (reverse)
Temple of Capitoline Jupiter with six columns, issued
under Vespasian, Rome, copper alloy. ( Trustees of the
BritishMuseum)164
Michelangelo, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Campidoglio, Rome.
(Photograph by Nick Cloud)
167
Etienne Duprac, Campidoglio, mid-1560s, pen and ink.
Part of the Codex Dyson Perrins, Duperac Codex,
Morgan Library and Museum, NY, MS M.1106, fol. 15r
(Photograph from Giannalisa Feltrinelli Collection, Morgan
Library and Museum, NY)
175

List of Illustrations

7.7

7.8

7.9

7.10
7.11

7.12

7.13

8.1
8.2

8.3

Etienne Duprac, St. Peters Basilica, mid-1560s, pen and

ink. Part of the Codex Dyson Perrins, Duperac Codex,
Morgan Library and Museum, NY, MS M.1106, fol. 4v
(Photograph from Giannalisa Feltrinelli Collection,
Morgan Library and Museum, NY)
Etienne Duprac, Capitolii sciographia ex ipso exemplari
Michaelis Angeli Bonaroti a Stephano Duperac Parisiensi
accurate delineate, after Michelangelos designs, published
by Antoine Lafrry, Rome, 1569, etching with engraving.
Part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae. ( Trustees
of the British Museum)
Etienne Duprac, Orthographia partis interioris Templi Divi
Petri in Vaticano, after Michelangelos designs, published by
Antoine Lafrry, Rome, 1569, etching with engraving.
Part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae. ( Trustees
of the British Museum)
Michelangelo, Campidoglio, view from the bottom
of the Cordonata in the Piazza Venezia, Rome.
(Photograph by author)
Louis Rouhier, La cavalcata ...a Santo Giovanni Laterano,
showing Il Possesso of Alexander VII from St. Peters to
San Giovanni in Laterano, passing through the Campidoglio
and by the Colosseum, published by Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi,
Rome, 1655, etching. ( Trustees of the BritishMuseum)
Piazza del Campidoglio, equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius
surrounded by groups of pedestrians (Photograph by
Max Alexander/ Dorling Kindersley Collection/
Getty Images)
Adolf Hitler riding through the Campidoglio with King Victor
Emmanuel III of Italy to a reception at the Capitol, May 8, 1938.
(Photograph by Paul Popper/ Popperfoto/ Getty Images)
The Roman Forum, Rome (Photograph by Nick Cloud)
Map of Rome, from Georg Braun and Franz Hogenbergs
Civitates orbis terrarium, published Cologne, 15721618,
engraved by Giovanni Francesco Camocio and hand colored
(Photograph by Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library,
Yale University)
Detail of Figure 8.2, the Capitoline Hill and Roman Forum

xi

176

177

178
179

180

181
182
188

191
192

xii

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

8.4

SS. Cosma e Damiano, founded by Felix IV, 52631, in aula

of the Temple of Peace and the so-called Temple of Romulus.
Renovations commissioned by Clement VIII, 1602, and
Urban VIII and Francesco Barberini, 162633 (Photograph
by the author)
193
8.5 The Curia Building, formerly S. Adriano, founded by Honorius I,
62538, in the Senate House. Renovations commissioned by
Cardinal Agostino Cusano, 1589, and Alfonso Sotomayor, 1654,
destroyed in 1935 (Photograph from the Bibliotheca Hertziana) 195
8.6 S. Giuseppe dei Falegnami, church of S. Pietro in Carcere over
Mamertine Prison, with ties to the reign of Sylvester I, 314335.
Reconstruction commissioned by the Congregazione dei
Falegnami, 15971663 (Photograph by Nick Cloud)
200
8.7 SS. Luca e Martina, church of S. Martina founded by Honorius I,
62538, in the secretarium senatus. Renovations commissioned
by Urban VIII and Francesco Barberini, and Pietro da Cortona,
163544 (Photograph by Nick Cloud)
201
8.8 S. Francesca Romana (S. Maria Nova), S. Maria Nova founded
ca. tenth century on foundations of the Temple of Venus and Rome.
Renovations commissioned by Paul V, 160815 (Photograph by
Manuel Chinellato)
202
8.9 S. Lorenzo in Miranda, in Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina,
perhaps from seventheighth cent., first documented in 1192.
Renovations commissioned by the Collegio degli Speziali,
160114 (Photograph by the author)
203
8.10 Photograph of the Roman Forum, taken 1871 by
John Henry Parker, showing the right flank of S. Maria Liberatrice,
built over the ruins of S. Maria Antiqua in the thirteenth century.
Renovations commissioned by Cardinal Marcello Lante, 1617,
destroyed in 1900 (Photograph from American Academy in
Rome, Photographic Archive)
204
8.11 Giuseppe Leoncini, plan of the Campo Vaccino, 1656, BAV
Chig.P.VII.10 f. 94r. (Photograph by Peter Lukehart, Center
for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts)
207
9.1
9.2

Franois Collignon, after Andrea Sacchi, Temporary theater in

Piazza Navona for the Giostra del Saraceno, 388 x 417 mm,
etching and engraving, Rome, 1635, The British Museum
Louis Rouhier, Pamphilj Obelisk, west side, 495 375 mm,
engraving, Rome, 1651, The British Museum

212
224

List of Illustrations

9.3

Giovanni Paolo Panini, Preparations to Celebrate the Birth of the

Dauphin of France in the Piazza Navona, 109 x 246 cm, oil on
canvas, Italy, 1731, National Gallery of Ireland. (Photograph
National Gallery of Ireland)

10.1 Steps to Moses (Image from the authors personal collection)

10.2 Tomb of Julius II in S.Pietro in Vincoli, Rome (Image from
the authors personal collection)
10.3 Bust of Moses (Image from the authors personal collection)
10.4 Head of Moses (Image from the authors personal collection)
10.5 Tables of Moses (Image from the authors personal collection)
11.1 Celebrations in honor of Pope Pius IX at the Ponte Milvio, 1857
(Source: Descrizione del circo e dellarco onorario eretti di l
da Ponte Molle pel fausto ritorno in Roma del sommo pontefice
Pio IX, Rome, 1858).
11.2 Inauguration of the Monument to King Victor Emmanuel II,
June 4, 1911 (Source: LIllustrazione italiana, June 11, 1911)
11.3 Demolitions to create the Via dellImpero, ca. 1930. In the
background to the right of the Vittoriano is the Palazzo Venezia.
(Source: Archivio Laterza, Bari)
11.4 Via dellImpero and to the right Via dei Trionfi, ca. 1935. (Source:
Consociazione turistica italiana, Roma, part I. Milan, 1941)
11.5 The project for the Palazzo del Littorio at the Foro Mussolini,
1938 (Source: Archivio V. Vidotto)
11.6 The Piazzale dellImpero, 1937 (Source: Archivio Centrale
dello Stato, Rome)
11.7 The inscriptions in their original sequence, 1937 (Source:
Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome)
11.8 New texts added to commemorate the end of Fascism,
the Constitutional Referendum and, the new Republican
Constitution (Photograph by Vittorio Vidotto)
11.9 The inversion of the inscriptions (Photograph by
Vittorio Vidotto)
11.10 The Vittoriano today (Photograph by Paolo Costa Baldi)
12.1 Val Melaina the setting for Bicycle Thieves (Photograph by
Gregory Smith)
12.2 Casal Bertone (Photograph by Gregory Smith)

xiii

228
245
246
248
249
250

253
257
259
263
264
265
268
269
270
271
281
282

xiv

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

12.3 Pietralata setting for A Violent Life (Photograph

by Gregory Smith)
12.4 Tiburtino IV (Photograph by Gregory Smith)
12.5 Tuscolano II (Photograph by Gregory Smith)
12.6 Casilino 23 (Photograph by Gregory Smith)
12.7 Mandrione (Photograph by Gregory Smith)
13.1 Trash Space: Behind the Accademia di Belle Arti, Passeggiata
di Ripetta (David Mayernik)
13.2 Via Acciaioli and Piazza dOro (David Mayernik)
13.3 Nolli Map: Pantheon, Piazza Montecitorio, Piazza
S. Ignazio (Reproduced from the original held by the
Department of Special Collections of the University
Libraries of Notre Dame)
13.4 Firewall behind the Forum of Augustus (David Mayernik)
13.5 Trajans Markets and the Exedra of the Forum
(David Mayernik) 
13.6 Nolli Map: Campidoglio (Reproduced from the original
held by the Department of Special Collections of the
University Libraries of Notre Dame)
13.7a Ara Pacis Museum toward the Lungotevere (David Mayernik)
13.7b Ara Pacis Museum from the Northwest (David Mayernik)
13.8 Map from Largo Argentina to Piazza Mastai (David Mayernik)
13.9 Panorama, Area Sacra di Largo Argentina (David Mayernik)
13.10 Map from Largo Argentina to Piazza Mastai, with Nolli map
information overlaid
13.11 Via delle Zoccolette from Via Arenula (David Mayernik)
13.12 Piazza G. Belli from Ponte Garibaldi (David Mayernik)
13.13 Viale Trastevere (David Mayernik)
13.14 Poster, Roma Tre University (ex-Mattatoio), Public Space
conference, May 2011 (David Mayernik)
13.15 Map from Largo Argentina to Piazza Mastai with Proposed
Additions (David Mayernik) 
13.16 Map from Largo Argentina to Via Arenula, with indications
of axes of major pre-Modern streets (top, Via Papalis; bottom,
convergence of two branches of the Via del Pellegrino)
(David Mayernik)
13.17 Gate, MAXXI (David Mayernik)
13.18 Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione, Viale Trastevere and
Via Morosini (David Mayernik)

284
287
293
297
298
302
303

304
306
306
307
312
312
315
316
317
318
318
320
321
323

324
325
327

List of Illustrations

xv

13.19 Nolli Map: Piazza del Quirinale (Reproduced from the original
held by the Department of Special Collections of the University
Libraries of Notre Dame)

328

14.1 Developments in Eastern Rome

14.2 A sidewalk in Ponte di Nona

342
345

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Presentation

Crossroads in Space and Time

Ali Madanipour

Cities are concentrations in space and time, many growing historically around
the intersection of major roads, facilitating the development of an urban society,
with its functional division of labor, communication with a hinterland, and trade
with other cities. The important nodes inside cities have grown around these
crossroads, where public spaces and major public institutions cluster, where
different paths meet and where the multiple dimensions of public life unfold.
Before the rise of the modern technologies in transport and communication,
these crossroads were the physical and institutional foci of social, economic
and political life, receiving much of the attention and investment that a town
could make. Rome, the eternal city at the heart of secular and spiritual empires,
standing at spatial and temporal crossroads, displays this better than most cities.
After a brief historical visit to the changing faces of Romes public spaces, as
places of power and persuasion, as well as trade and consumption, this chapter
will focus on the contemporary public spaces in a wider international context
and the challenges they face in the future. Public spaces are a primary component
of the urban experience, and as cities have become more important as nodes in
the network of globalized economies, their public spaces have found increasing
significance. This new attention has brought to surface the tensions between
different claims to space, where strong exclusionary forces can be identified in
the making and managing of public spaces in cities. This chapter explores these
pressures within the framework of the changing nature of cities, and its impact
on public spaces, arguing for democratic public spaces that are considered as
common goods, as accessible places made through inclusive processes.
Places of Power and Persuasion
As Virgil had wished it, Romans were to have no bounds of empire Nor term
of years to their immortal line.1 This sense of limitless time, space, and power

Aeneid, Book I.

xviii

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

was to be reflected in their cities and public spaces, as displayed in the Forum
and other public spaces, which accumulated buildings and places of significance,
as well as memories and mythologies, through a long history.
Similarly, the provincial Roman cities public spaces provided the stages
upon which the might of the empire and the religious and secular powers were
on display. In the layout of a new Roman town, sacrifice, divination and augury
were used first for the selection of the best site. Within the city walls, a grid was
established, and sites for public places for temples and forums were determined.
According to Vitruvius,2 the celebrated Roman architectural theorist who
lived in the first century B.C., the Greeks designed their agora on a square plan
with exceedingly spacious double porticoes. However, the Italian cities, with
their custom of gladiatorial games in the forum, he thought, required more
spacious intercolumnations around the performance space. In inland cities, the
forum was to be placed at the centre of the city, while in seaside cities it had to be
right next to the port.3 Temples and other public places were to be adjoined next
to the forum and the senate house, in particular, being built so as to enhance the
dignity of the town or city.4 As Vitruvius puts it,
shrines of Venus, Vulcan, and Mars should be located outside the walls so that
venerated lust will not become a commonplace for the citys adolescents and
matriarchs. By summoning Volcanic energy out of the city by means of rites and
sacrifices, the citys buildings are thought to have been delivered from the danger
of fire. And if the divinity of Mars is honored outside the city walls, there will not
be armed conflict among citizens, rather, he will ensure that the walls serve only
to defend the city from its enemies and the danger of war.5

The forums dimensions depended on the size of the citys population, as its
area should neither be too cramped for efficiency nor so large that for lack of
population it looks deserted.6 The proportions of 3 by 2 for its length and width
were recommended. The forums configuration was therefore oblong and its
design effective for mounting spectacles.7
The interplay of power and persuasion once again shaped the spaces of the
city in new ways, as Rome was revitalized at the end of the medieval period on
the basis of promoting pilgrimage. From 1300 onwards, jubilees were held in

2
3

Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture (Cambridge, 1999), V,1, p. 64.

Ibid, I,6, p. 31.
Ibid, V,2, p. 65.
Ibid., I,7, p. 31.
Ibid., V,2, p. 64.
Ibid.

Figure 0.1
The Roman Forum:
A crossroads in space
and time

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

xx

Rome; these were a time of pilgrimage and a source of income, with which vital
repairs to the city were made. Pope Nicholas V (144755) saw the rebuilding of
the city as an instrument of establishing Rome as the undisputed capital of faith
for Christians. He wrote,
To create solid and stable convictions in the minds of the uncultured masses there
must be something that appeals to the eye: a popular faith, sustained only by
doctrines, will never be anything but feeble and vacillating. But if the authority of
the Holy See were visibly displayed in majestic buildings, imperishable memorials
and witnesses seemingly planted by the hand of God himself, belief would grow and
strengthen like a tradition from one generation to another, and all the world would
accept and revere it. Noble edifices combining taste and beauty with imposing
proportions would immensely conduce to the exaltation of the chair of St Peter.8

With the turn of the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, the centre of
innovation moved from Florence to Rome, with Early Renaissance transition
to High Renaissance, and Mannerism.9 Eventually, the counter-reformation
provided the impetus for a Baroque refashioning of Rome, which combined the
religious and the temporal in a display of images and an organization of space.
Romes streets and monuments were gradually improved under the patronage of
different popes, but it is Sixtus V (158590) who is widely known for a radical
plan for the city. His program was based on three objectives. The first objective
was to set up a water distribution network that would enable the repopulation of
the city hills, through building new and repairing ancient viaducts. The second
objective was setting up a street network that would connect the main churches
of the city and the improvements undertaken by his predecessors. The third
objective was to create an aesthetic unity for a city made of disparate parts.10
Old and new streets were integrated into a network which connected the seven
pilgrimage churches of Rome, easing the navigation in the city for pilgrims.
The streets were given gentle inclines by flattening hills and filling valleys; their
straight lines provided open vistas, which were enhanced by placing obelisks at
the main intersections and other important points.
According to Leon Battista Alberti, the Renaissance counterpart to
Vitruvius, a forum is but an enlarged crossroad, and a show ground [which
included theatre, circus, and gladiatorium,] nothing but a forum surrounded
Quoted in A.E.J. Morris, History of Urban Form: Before the Industrial Revolution,
Third edition (Harlow, 1994), p. 176.
9
Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture, Seventh edition
(Harmondsworth, 1963), p. 200.
10
Morris, History of Urban Form, p. 179.
8

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xxi

with steps.11 But it was essential that such public places were well articulated, as
compared to the relative modesty of private buildings and spaces. While private
buildings were expected to be modest in their appearances, the significance of
public buildings (civic and sacred) was to be emphasized by ornaments.12 The
public space was to be clean and elegant, and
[a]part from being properly paved and thoroughly clean, the roads within a city
should be elegantly lined with porticoes of equal lineaments, and houses that
are matched by line and level. The parts of the road that need to be particularly
distinguished by ornaments are these: bridges, crossroads, fora, and show buildings.13

One of the best examples of the use of public places for the display of a new
order was the monumental use of sculpture in public places, by placing a statue
or an obelisk at the centre of a square, a tradition that was adopted widely after
the sixteenth century. The idea was introduced by Michelangelo in Campidoglio
on Capitol Hill in Rome, which he was commissioned to design in 1537. Before
this square, sculpture was placed next to buildings, working closely with, or
as part of, buildings, leaving the center of public spaces open for public use.14
Michelangelo, with his sculptors sensibilities, gave the center of the square to
a statue of Marcus Aurelius, the only equestrian statue to have survived from
ancient Rome, making a temporal connection with antiquity. This central place
was emphasized by placing the statue at the center of an oval pattern on the floor,
and on the main axis of the square, which was marked by the stairs leading from
the bottom of the hill to the square. This was the first monumental square of
its kind, paving the way for the Baroque squares that were created afterwards.15
In Baroque streets and squares, fixed points, such as statues, fountains,
obelisks or buildings were used to manage vistas, as distinctive from the ever
changing vistas that characterized medieval cities.16 These fixed points were the
reference points of central composition of the time, which were connected to
one another through axes and gridiron patterns, to create harmony and unity in
11
Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books (Cambridge, MA, 1988),
IIX,6, p. 262.
12
Ibid., IX, 1. p. 2923.
13
Ibid., IIX, 6, p. 262.
14
Camillo Sitte, City Planning According to Artistic Principles, in George Collins
and Christiane Collins (eds) Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning (New York,
1986).
15
Morris, History of Urban Form, pp. 1834.
16
Andrew Trout, City on the Seine: Paris in the Time of Richelieu and Louis XIV (New
York, 1996), p. 52.

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Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Figure 0.2

Campidoglio: Temporal connections through spatial monumentality

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xxiii

urban space. Even though religious beliefs still dominated the urban structure,
and the urban nodes and points of reference were still churches and other
religious symbols, the idea of creating an interconnected and harmonious urban
space now made these nodes a part of a larger structure.
After the emergence of the absolute monarchies and the modern nation states,
Rome was a source of inspiration for many city builders throughout the centuries,
eager to use the urban space as an affirmation of their rising power and the
development of new national identities. Colbert, Louis XIVs powerful treasurer
who changed the face of Paris, dreamed of a new Rome that was decorated with
obelisks, a pyramid, a new royal palace, and triumphal arches.17 Louis Napoleon
declared his wishes to be a second Augustus, as it was he who had turned Rome
into a city of marble.18 Wren, who proposed the transformation of London after
the great fire of 1666, was aware of the Sixtus Vs streets in Rome through printed
sources and travelers accounts.19 In the design of Washington DC, Rome is
present in the geometrical and axial plan of LEnfant, while Washingtons senate,
and its location Capitol, were both named after Romes.
The ancient Greek approach to spatial organization was based on human
cognition, in sacred precincts as well as in agoras. Buildings were so positioned
around an open space that they could all be seen from a three-quarter view,
and be located at distances of 3070 meters, from the vantage point of a main
entrance.20 For the Greeks, even after the Hippodamian orthogonal town plans,
each building was an end in itself and they were satisfied if it was beautiful
and accessible. This, however, changed with the Romans, who subordinated
their streets and marketplaces to dominant buildings and axial planning. The
city space was organized along the two main northsouth and eastwest axes
(cardo and decumanus). As the size of the city and the power of the state grew
and democratic practices were abandoned, long vistas, mechanical symmetry,
centralized effects and sacrificing other considerations to the facade were sought.
This difference between the Greeks and Romans in the approach to urban space
seems to have provided a basis for the future trends in the West. The Middle
Ages unconsciously reverted to the Greek method, while the Renaissance and
what has followed since have revived the Roman ideal.21

Ibid., p. 168.
Quoted in Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris (London, 2002), p. 265.
19
Kerry Downes, The Architecture of Wren, Second edition (London, 1988), p. 51.
20
C.A.Doxiadis, Architectural Space in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, MA, 1972), pp.
35.
21
D.S. Robertsons, Greek and Roman Architecture, Second Edition (Cambridge,
1969), pp. 1914.
17
18

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Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Places of Trade and Consumption

Medieval cities were places of trade, marketplaces at crossroads.22 They provided
a refuge from the countryside, an enclosed safe space for the production and
exchange of goods and services. That is why the city wall, with its towers and
gates, was a major but necessary investment by the town. Inside the wall, the
street pattern was like a starfish, connecting a dense centre to the gates along
the arterial roads. Just outside the gates, businesses and entire neighborhoods
grew along these roads, the faubourgs, where trade could be as vibrant as inside
the gates without paying the gate and sales tax. Focus on trade provided a basis
for transition out of a religious and into a secular framework, which provided
the groundwork for the emergence of Renaissance humanism. The walls that
surrounded the city and the church that formed its spiritual (and at times
temporal heart) were the common infrastructures of the medieval city.
The balance between the public and private spaces was always changing in
the medieval city, which was a place of trade characterized by a constant battle
between public and private interests. There was a fluid balance between
Infinitely expanding public space and the eternally encroaching buildings.23
The streets of the medieval city, which appeared to some modern commentators
as an anarchic maze, reflecting the behavior of pack donkeys rather than
humans,24 were indeed formed by constant struggle between public and private
interests. The significant number of craftsmen and traders that made up the
towns population were engaged in trade inside private spaces and outside in the
public areas. As the ability to extend the private commercial space was limited
in the walled cities of Europe, a constant competition for control and use of
space was reflected in encroachments into public space and a permanent struggle
between public and private spheres.25 It is this struggle which appears to have
been once again revived in our time.
The spatial division of labor has led to the notion of consumer and producer
cities, a division which has a long history. For Max Weber,26 the prime example of
the producer city was the medieval city, where new institutions, ideas, and social
classes emerged as part of a division of labor with the countryside, in which both
Howard Saalman, Medieval Cities (London, 1968); Colin Platt, The English
Medieval Town (London, 1976); Colin Platt, The Architecture of Medieval Britain: A Social
History, (New Haven, 1990).
23
Saalman, Medieval Cities, p. 35.
24
Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow, and its Planning (London, 1971).
25
Saalman, Medieval Cities.
26
Max Weber, Economy and Society: An outline of interpretive sociology (Berkeley,
1978); Max Weber, The Agrarian Sociology of Ancient Civilizations (London, 1998).
22

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Figure 0.3 The revival of struggle between public and private spheres
were engaged in production and exchange. In contrast to this positive image of
the medieval city stood the image of the ancient city, especially Rome: there was
no political distinction between the ancient city and the countryside, both ruled
by the same elite, in which the city consumed what the countryside produced,
suggesting a parasitic role for the city at the expense of the countryside. Historians
of ancient cities, however, have rejected this characterization, arguing that the
relationships between the town and the countryside in ancient Rome should be
put in a broader context, concentrating on the role of households, rather than the
geographical separation between town and country. The relationships between
the town and the country worked in two ways, both being parts of the economy,
with a level of investment by the landed aristocracy in the productive capacity of
the urban economy. Indeed, the argument goes, the dystopian characterization
of the ancient metropolis, exemplified in the influential work of Mumford27 and
the city planning tradition, draws on twentieth-century approaches to the city,
in which the metropolis was equated with unhealthy and chaotic conditions, as
opposed to the planned order of smaller cities.28

27
28

L. Mumford, The City in History (London, 1961).

Helen Parkins (ed), Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City (London, 1997).

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Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

With the passing of manufacturing industry in some cities, the idea of

consumer cities has now been applied to the contemporary city. De-industrialized
cities and those dominated by services are called consumer cities, a term which
carries a pejorative undertone, implying that these cities no longer earn their
living out of hard work, but consume what the others produce, and to do so these
cities resort to various tricks. The opposite to these consumer cities, it is thought,
are producer cities, as exemplified by the centers of manufacturing industry,
where useful objects were produced by honest diligent people. Engagement
in services, it has been argued by the critics of de-industrialization, is not
productive work, but only a soft form of economic activity that is not reliable
enough or sustainable. To counter this accusation, the idea of a knowledge
economy appears to be offering a positive label for services, acknowledging their
productive force and economic value.
In this positive portrayal, the knowledge citys relation to the manufacturing
city is similar to the medieval citys relation to the countryside: two forms of
production incorporated in an interdependent spatial division of labor within
integrated economies. Knowledge and information are the products of this city,
and these are exchanged for agricultural and manufacturing goods produced
elsewhere. This description of the new roles for de-industrializing economies
moves away from the idea of the consumer city and leads to an assertive role for
the intangible products of the services that prevail in the knowledge economy.
Inherent in this integration, however, there is a hierarchical representation of a
tension, which is ultimately addressed through changing positions in the hierarchy.
The range of intangible goods and services produced in the knowledge city,
therefore, could be economically productive work, generating income and
employment for the city, enabling it to earn its living. However, as the global
financial crisis of 2008 showed, intangible products are precarious, potentially
fictitious, and ultimately dependent on persuading consumers that they need these
products. The western policy makers increasingly talk about re-industrialization
and rebalancing of service-based economies. When the new coalition government
came to power in the UK in 2010, their diagnosis was that the country was too
much dependent on the finance industry, and it now needed to find alternative
ways of earning a living, while learning to live within its means.29

29
Tola Onanuga, Emergency Budget: George Osbornes speech in full, The Guardian,
Tuesday 22 June 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/22/emergency-budgetfull-speech-text, accessed 2 August 2010.

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Places of Competition and Promotion

The postwar strategy of state intervention in the market30 had produced a new
landscape on the basis of modernist ideas.31 The boom years, however, came to an
end by the mid-1960s, as the older industrial economies went into decline and
critics questioned the modernist project.32 This period was followed by dramatic
changes in the economic and social structure of urban societies, characterized by
a market paradigm and the rise of services. The market was now considered to be
in a better position to deliver economic renewal and vibrancy, and therefore was
given a much freer reign, whereas the state was to be only a regulator and enabler,
rather than a provider. The advent of the information, communication and new
transport technologies, and the emergence of vibrant economies around the
world, has led to a new international division of labor, whereby the production
of goods and services has found new locations. The old manufacturing industries
are replaced by financial and creative industries as the new engines of economic
growth.33 In this transition, urban development moved from a public sector
activity to a remit of the private sector.
Alongside the rise of a market paradigm, public authorities emulate the logic
and behavior of private sector agencies in the name of efficiency and economic
vibrancy. Traditional methods of organizing government were thought to
be too cumbersome, too bureaucratic, too inefficient, too unresponsive, too
unproductive.34 The market, however, would not be interested in delivering
public goods, so the public sector would have to build the basic infrastructure,
reclaim the land, and encourage investors to be engaged in a locality. This shift
inevitably favors those who are better placed in the market, creating spaces for
their use and enjoyment, and keeping others at bay, with dramatic implications
for the social life of cities.
Examples of market-friendly public spaces abound, where the interests
of investors and consumers seem to overlap. Widely discussed examples are
shopping malls, which are private versions of town centers, with the added
30
Michel Aglietta, A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The US Experience, New Edition
(London, 2000); Alain Lipietz, Towards a New Economic Order: Postfordism, Ecology and
Democracy (Cambridge, 1992).
31
E. Howard, Garden Cities of To-morrow (London, 1960); Le Corbusier, The City of
To-Morrow and Its Planning (New York, 1987).
32
J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (New York, 1961); Kevin
Lynch, The Image of the City (Cambridge, MA, 1960); Henri Lefebvre, The Production of
Space (Oxford, 1991).
33
A. Madanipour, Knowledge Economy and the City (London, 2011).
34
R.D. Behn, The new public management paradigm and the search for democratic
accountability, International Public Management Journal 1/2 (1998), p. 131.

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Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

dimension of private management and security guards. Business Improvement

Districts are also another example of the private management of public
space, where the public spaces in an area come under the control of a group
of businesses, who would arrange for its maintenance and improvement, but
would also expect a degree of limitation to support their business activities. This
is where the exclusion of the undesirables comes into play, as people who are
detrimental to business activities. As public authorities embrace the methods
of private sector businesses, they outsource their tasks of urban management,
and appear to be happy if private companies build and run parts of the city on
their behalf. Beyond the affluent parts of the town, however, even this level of
public space provision would not take place, as the main attention of the public
and private sectors seems to focus on the spaces that matter economically. The
withdrawal of basic private sector services, such as banks and supermarkets,
from low-income areas is defended on the basis of crime and low return, and so
the conditions of decline continue in low-income neighborhoods.
Globalization refers to the process of increased interdependence between
different parts of the world, which are connected to one another through a
global financial infrastructure with the help of transport and information and
communication technologies. In this context, cities and regions around the
world find themselves in competition with one another, each trying to find a
niche in a crowded marketplace by offering distinctive qualities, which would
give them competitive advantage over the others. The key public spaces of these
cities are therefore improved as display windows, as badges of identity for the
city, as brands in the global market. Such improvement no doubt contributes
to the quality of life for some residents, but much of the justification for public
space improvements draws on the economics of city marketing and interregional and inter-national competition. What is at stake is the status of the city,
its image, and position in the market. It becomes crucial for a city to attract
a famous brand, such as Harvey Nichols in Leeds, and to have well-known
landmarks and iconic buildings, such as the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
Whatever the extent of beautification at the centre of a city, its benefits are not
obvious or available to the poor who live at a distance, as in French banlieues or
in the British inner city, who cannot afford the high cost of public transport or
feel alienated from the spectacles on display.

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Places of Sociability and Recognition

Across the advanced industrial countries, social inequality has been growing
in the past two decades.35 Social inequality is often studied in its economic
dimension, measured through income inequality and how it has been rising.
Others have studied welfare inequality, and how access to health, education
and other public services has varied across different sections of the population.
However, inequality is also manifest in other areas, including access to social
recognition, political participation, quality of life, and perceptions of wellbeing.36
Social inequality, therefore, is multi-dimensional, as evident in economic,
political and cultural spheres, with clear spatial manifestation. The multiple
dimensions of inequality find spatial manifestation in the concentrations of
multiple deprivation in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods.37
As the deprived population is concentrated in particular parts of cities,
their public spaces become a manifestation of disadvantage. Transient and
diverse populations who are trapped within these areas bring their frustration to
public spaces, whereby these spaces display the cracks in the fragile coexistence
of these groups. Rather than places of sociability, public spaces become places
of incompatibility, miscommunication and conflict. As long-established
neighborhoods associated with the industrial working class decline, their
physical and social infrastructures deteriorate, and their public spaces show
signs of exhaustion and neglect. The public spaces of deprived neighborhoods
become the playgrounds of the disillusioned youth, alienating other groups,
particularly the elderly, who find these spaces unpleasant or even dangerous to
use. These spaces become heavily used by some groups, such as street drinkers,
who in turn frighten young mothers with their children, or passers-by. As the
fear of crime and violence increases, withdrawal from public spaces intensifies.
The attention paid to city centre public spaces, which is associated with the citys
economic development, is not stretched to the poor areas, as such an investment
is seen as a drain on resources, rather than an investment in the future.38
A combined effect of the rising social inequality and radical transformation
of the economic structure has been gentrification and displacement, with
OECD, Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries
(Paris, 2008).
36
Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations (Cambridge, 2000); Axel Honneth,
Disrespect: The Normative Foundations of Critical Theory (Cambridge, 2007).
37
A. Madanipour, Social exclusion and space, in R. LeGates and F.Stout (eds), The
City Reader, Fifth Edition, (London, 2011), pp. 18694.
38
A. Madanipour, Marginal public spaces in European cities, in A. Madanipour (ed),
Whose Public Space?, (London, 2010), pp. 11130.
35

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

xxx

considerable implications for public spaces of the city. Gentrification refers to a

shift in the control and use of space from lower-income to higher-income social
groups, reflecting a degree of competition for a finite resource.39 This is often a
painful process for those who are adversely affected, as they are somehow forced
to leave their neighborhoods, either by market forces or by pressure from public
regeneration projects.
Gentrification is sometimes the by-product, and sometimes the driving force,
of change in the urban landscape, in which services have replaced manufacturing
industries. The production of space by the market tends to look for new
opportunities for investment and for higher returns;40 if some areas of the city
happen to show readiness for such investments, especially after long periods
of disinvestment and falling prices, they become candidates for regeneration.
When investment is attracted to an area, however, rents rise and the original
population and activities can no longer survive. The conflict between use value
and exchange value is solved in favor of the latter.41 Regeneration and renaissance
of cities, often for the benefits of the new urban middle class, become a key
preoccupation for governments, as part of their overall economic development
efforts.42 This change is clearly visible in public spaces, which often become a
driver for the gentrification process. By investing in public spaces, market
confidence is established, as developers and investors see signs of upmarket
movement in the area. These public spaces, therefore, respond to the market,
becoming the new spectacles and paving the way for new investment. The
resulting public spaces tend to cater to the needs of an upmarket clientele, rather
than serving a wider population.
While public spaces have different dimensions and are studied from a variety
of angles, the primary defining feature of a public space is its accessibility, and
therefore if spaces are enclosed and inaccessible, it is not possible to call them
public.43 Access in turn is closely intertwined with the notion of equality; when
T. Slater, The eviction of critical perspectives from gentrification research,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30/4 (2006), pp. 73757; Loretta
Lees and David Ley, Introduction to special issue on gentrification and public policy, Urban
Studies 45/12 (2008), pp. 237984.
40
Lefebvre, The Production of Space; N. Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification
and the Revanchist City (London, 1996).
41
John Logan and Harvey Molotch, Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place
(Berkeley, 1987).
42
Urban Task Force, Towards an Urban Renaissance (London, 1999); S. Cameron,
Gentrification, housing re-differentiation and urban regeneration: going for growth in
Newcastle upon Tyne, Urban Studies 40/12 (2003), pp. 236782; J. Punter (ed), Urban
Design and the British Urban Renaissance (London, 2010).
43
S.I. Benn and G.F Gaus (eds), Public and Private in Social Life (London, 1983).
39

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xxxi

access is denied, a clear signal is given that the space is not open to all and caters
only for a select group who are able to pay for the privilege. The public has been
defined as the opposite of the private and the personal,44 or in other words, as
being permeable, interpersonal or impersonal.45 The clear spatial differentiation
between the two realms has been also advocated by those who are concerned
about safety and security.46 In social and spatial terms, however, the boundaries
are much more blurred, as the existence of semi-public and semi-private spaces
are essential for making social life possible through softening the boundaries.
The way these boundaries are constructed has a considerable impact on the
character of a city: if public spaces are lined by high walls, barbed wire and
set-back fortress buildings, or by low fences, trees, green spaces and welcoming
buildings, this can create completely different conditions and atmosphere.
Beyond functional and instrumental access, there is also a symbolic and
expressive dimension to public spaces. In small towns and villages of the past,
the public space was the place of many activities, including ritual and display,
integrating the economic, political and cultural life of the community. In the large
cities of modern societies the integrative nature and role of public spaces have
changed, but the use of public space for sociability has not disappeared. Public
space is the place where identities are displayed, discovered, and asserted. Access
to this opportunity plays a major role in the sense of wellbeing for individuals
and social groups. Access, therefore, finds both instrumental and expressive
dimensions, responding to a variety of social needs, even in the modern large city
with its non-converging networks and fragmented identities. The anonymity of
the city and the openness of its public spaces have caused fear in people who
have been worried about crime and security, moving towards enclosure and
limitation imposed on public spaces. Any reduction in accessibility, however,
would take away an essential part of what makes spaces public and democratic
and, subsequently, what makes cities. Accessible public spaces provide the
opportunity for collective and shared experiences, confronting the forces of
segregation and disintegration that are inherent in large urban societies.
To understand the significance of inclusivity, which would ensure equality
and accessibility, we can look at the dynamics of the development process, in
which urban spaces are produced. This is a process in which a wide range of
actors and agencies are involved, often conceived and controlled by professional
considerations and commercial interests. As the size of companies and their
Allan Silver, Two different sorts of commerce friendship and strangership in
civil society, in J. Weintraub, and K. Kumar (eds), Public and Private in Thought and Action:
Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy (Chicago, 1997), pp. 4374.
45
A. Madanipour, Public and Private Spaces of the City (London, 2003).
46
Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
44

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Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

productive capacity has grown, the division of labor has diversified and extended,
and the process of development become more complex, the tendency has been
for the process to become more instrumental and technical, with limited relations
to the people who may use the product. The broader conceived and the more
inclusive this process, the more accessible and inclusive its results would be.
To ensure a degree of success in meeting these challenges, there is a broad
agreement that participation of the public would improve the chances of success
in development and regeneration of urban neighborhoods. Such inclusivity is
unable to address the more fundamental economic and social problems that have
persisted in these areas, but they have the potential to trigger the start of a process
of change. Without indulging in physical determinism, inclusive processes would
create and maintain better places, where people have a better sense of ownership
and have more control over their living environment. Rather than merely reflecting
the market expectations or professional instructions, an inclusive process may have
the capacity to include the voices of the people who use and inhabit the space,
hence ensuring its accessibility and relevance to their needs.
Examples of co-production of inclusive places can be found around the
world. An example is the low-income neighborhoods in Latin America, where
informal settlements have gradually matured, and through collaboration between
residents and support from the municipality, public spaces of barrios have
improved and new spaces been created.47 In northern France, the collaboration
of design teams, local municipalities and local populations were able to plan and
implement public spaces that were more accessible.48 In Britain, the regeneration
processes that have involved citizens from the start have been widely recognized
as successful examples of urban transformation, where public spaces are
reconfigured and new ones created. These examples of inclusive production
of urban space indicate the possibility of creating alternative conditions for
the lives of people who are often undermined and ignored in urban change.
When compared to similar schemes without any public participation, the gap in
acceptability and accessibility of urban space becomes fully evident.

Mauricio Hernndez-Bonilla, Making public space in low-income neighborhoods

in Mexico, in A. Madanipour (ed), Whose Public Space? International case studies in urban
design and development (London, 2010), pp. 191211.
48
Paola Michialino, Co-production of public space in Nord-Pas-de-Calais:
redefinition of social meaning, in A. Madanipour (ed), Whose Public Space? (London, 2010),
pp. 191211.
47

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Crossroads in Space and Time

Public spaces have been used as places of power and persuasion, in which
political and economic powers are on display, and cultural power is exerted
through organization of space and the deployment of aesthetic sensibilities
and cultural traditions. Through monuments, spectacles and rituals, religious
beliefs and national identities are forged in public places and political powers
are legitimized. Public spaces have also been used as places of trade and
consumption, in a tense competition between different private interests with
each other and with the society as a whole over the ownership and control of
urban space. Public spaces have been used, moreover, as places of exclusion and
social stratification, as well as places of sociability and democratic integration.
While some forces pull the social fabric apart and display the results in public
spaces, it can be conceivable that resistance to these forces may also be partially
developed and displayed in public space, through instituting inclusive processes
aiming at the creation of accessible places. Throughout the ages, public spaces
have been windows into urban society in all its complexities, becoming the
mediums through which recurring fights between different interests as well
as the struggle for co-production and peaceful coexistence are made visible.
Located at the core of cultural and political networks for millennia, Rome has
displayed these features better than most, features that many cities around the
world have shared.

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Introduction
Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne

The Context in Which the Essays Were Produced

The first Biennial of Public Space, sponsored in 2011 by the Lazio branch of
the Italian National Urban Planning Institute (INU), provided the opportunity
to organize a seminar revolving around the idea of public space as expressed
through 2,000 years of Romes history. The promoters of the Biennial believed
that the central and seemingly timeless characteristic of this western city was
precisely its organization around public space. Yet the centrality of public space
has come under such strong challenge in the new Millennium as to question its
viability in the citys future life. We thus resolved, with Hegels famous allusion
to Minervas flight at dusk1 echoing in our thoughts, that the time had come
to create a recurring international forum in which to gather together anyone
interested in the fate of the city as a unique expression of western culture.
This first Biennial had a strong Italian focus, and attracted scholars and
practitioners from many parts of this country to engage in reflection on public
space both as a contemporary concept and as a material practice. The editors of
this volume chose to pursue a historical perspective, and issued a call for papers
which drew in numerous responses, including the authors who have contributed
to this volume. The seminar on the history of public space in Rome was so
successful that it extended over the entire three days of the Biennial, housed
in Romes former slaughterhouse, now refurbished as the Architecture Faculty
of the University of Rome Three. From the outset we hoped that the essays
produced for this seminar would find their way into a published collection, and
were fortunate that the idea received the enthusiastic support of Ashgate. It was
our conviction that no other western city could offer a showcase for the evolving
character of public space over such a long stretch of time.
From the classical writers to the present day, Romes vast and well-documented
historical experience provides an unparalleled laboratory in which to track the
1
Putnam refers to this expression when describing Machiavellis celebration of public
virtue in a period when public virtue was no longer a central guiding principle in political
practice, in R. D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy
(Princeton, N.J., 1993).

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

spatial expression of that protean concept of the public. The idea of the public
is expressed in such a diversity of settings that it escapes precise definition.
Contemporary practitioners of urban planning, urban activists, sociologists,
anthropologists, historians and any citizen with an interest in one of the most
compelling and enduring dimensions of western society all have an interest in
the public sphere, but rarely agree on what it entails. Madanipour2 suggests that
the relevance of the concept is not limited to the western city. And the concept
is strongly nuanced when contextualized in different geographical, social and
historical settings. Rome as the paradigmatic western city may be considered
the privileged home of public space which has changed so dramatically over the
centuries. By treating diverse facets of public space as expressed in this peculiarly
western setting in so many different historical periods we were able to cast new
light on the plastic limits of the idea of the public as expressed in spatial practice.
The complex evolution of a spatialized idea of the public as seen through
critical episodes in the history of Rome shows just how vital the notion has been
over many millennia. This evanescent notion has furnished an ideal and a measure
of success not only in planning the city, but likewise in the pursuit of human
perfection associated with urban life. The contemporary decline of the public
may be the measure of the decline of a type of community, and with it a type of
individual, that has accompanied so many centuries of western experience. It is
also a potential witness to the decline of such urban values as equality, diversity
and civic virtue. This is the pessimistic view. More optimistically one might hope
that the apparent erosion of the public in contemporary Rome is a sign that this
historic principle is undergoing yet another transformation.
Guiding Principles for the Investigation
From the outset we faced the question of how to define the limits of our
investigation. We did not wish to exclude perspectives, and aspired to encourage
cross-disciplinary debate on the idea of public space as seen across a wide
range of historical periods. The possible contexts in which public space could
acquire relevance included architectural, institutional, political, social, religious,
phenomenological, and artistic settings. This list was by no means exhaustive, and
other settings which emerged as the seminar evolved included the exploration
of the human subconscious, and the use of the visible city in the construction
of narrative. From a conceptual standpoint the idea of situating a study of
2
Ali Madanipour, Whose Public Space. International Case Studies in Urban Design and
Development (London, 2010).

Introduction

public space in a single geographical location seemed unusually powerful, quite

apart from the symbolic importance of Rome. Soja3 has spoken of the need
to move from historical and social investigations to an exploration of spatial
constraints in shaping human experience. In this triple dialectic the ontology
of space acquires equal importance to relational and temporal frameworks in
understanding human action. In Rome the convergence of these dimensions is
seen by the way ideas from the classical antique are appropriated in successive
historical periods. When deployed in spatial practice these historically grounded
ideas must necessarily take into consideration the way the face of the city has
been shaped by prior urban practice. Even the citizen narratives collected in the
contemporary city illustrate the powerful hold of the imagined past over the
imagined present. The power of a shared vision can unite rich and poor with
powerful legitimizing potential for ruling elites. The shifting nature of elitemass linkage, the competition among elite factions, and the cleavage within the
common run of citizens all furnish dynamics which make the control of shared
memory an ongoing contest.
Italys importance in the evolution of the western idea of the city has justified
a long tradition of studies which place this country in a prominent position.
This is seen in excellent recent studies of the Italian piazza4 or Italian streets.5
Going back in time we find extensive reference to Italian cities in the work of
that seminal writer on public space, Camillo Sitte, one of the first to theorize
on the importance of public space in the life of a modern city. Sitte6 recognized
the aesthetic and the psychological function of the citys public spaces, and their
guiding role in ordering city design. Extending this well-established tradition,
the essays contained in this collection aspire to move beyond the design
implication of public space, to explore the meaning potential of the public as a
spatially embedded concept.
One of the most distinguished reflections on the idea of the public is
furnished by Norberto Bobbio in his seminal essay on the dichotomy between
public and private. We learn from Bobbio7 that this dichotomy represents
an exhaustive system of classification first codified in the sixth century. It has
Edward W. Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice (Minneapolis, 2010).
Eamonn Canniffe, The Politics of the Piazza. The History and Meaning of the Italian
Square (Surrey, 2008).
5
Zeynep Celik, Diane Favro and Richard Ingersoll (eds), Streets: Critical Perspectives
on Public Space (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1994).
6
Camillo Sitte, L Art de Btir les Villes: Notes et Rflexions dun Architecte. Translated
by Camille Martin. (Paris, 1918).
7
Norberto Bobbio, Democracy and Dictatorship. The Nature and Limits of State Power.
Translated by Peter Kennealy. (Cambridge, UK, 2006).
3
4

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

furnished a guiding principle in Rome-inspired legal thought up through the

modern period, and embraces both political and social spheres. Originally the
concept of the public was the stronger of the two, subtending the notion of the
res publica which bound people together by a principle of shared utility. The
dichotomy subsumed all other forms of classification, making it possible to layer
on other contrasts, such as that between politics and economics, associated
respectively with public and private spheres. Since the public was pre-eminent
over the private, politics was correspondingly ascendant over economics.
The roots of this order of things reach back to the Aristotelian idea whereby
the totality has ends which cannot be reduced to the sum of the aims of the
individual members that compose it, and that, once the good of the totality has
been achieved, transforms itself into the good of its parts. 8
Sittes idea of good urban design is consistent with this hierarchical
organization of priorities. The city as a representation of a public good should
be designed starting with its public spaces understood as roads, squares, and
public amenities. The private spaces are secondary in conceptual terms, though
independent. We find this hierarchy expressed in many periods of Romes
evolution; yet a tension is involved. Bobbio9 speaks of a complementarity
between the publicization of the private and the privatization of the public, in a
contest where the victory of the visible over the invisible is never achieved once
and for all. Thus we often see private interests which attempt to control a spatially
deployed idea of public in their efforts to advance private advantage over shared
collective interests. Today the private has gained ascendency over the public, as
economics has gained ascendency over politics. Yet the final victory of one over
the other is still not certain.
Classification of Public Space in Everyday Practice
As we have seen, the publicprivate dichotomy is a governing feature of western
thought diversely declinated in different times. The central issue is of course
what in practice we mean by public, and how this concept is deployed in space.
In everyday life the word public may refer to areas pertaining to the workings of
the State, or the market economy. It may also refer to the sphere of spontaneous
sociability, areas of citizen practice in variegated everyday exchanges which
are characteristic of any democratic system. Spatial expressions of the public
are generally defined in architectural practice, and carry meaning associated

8
9

Bobbio, Democracy and Dictatorship, p. 14.

Bobbio, Democracy and Dictatorship, p. 20.

Introduction

with the forms of government which shape their development. Public areas are
typically rich semiotically, at times expressing sharp tension between vernacular
and formal meaning systems. They may convey deliberate political messages; or
represent the mentioned areas of spontaneous interaction, protected as such
by the State, allowing citizens to give free reign to various forms of creative
expression. Public spaces may also have a juridical dimension, establishing an
exclusive definition of space which can be termed public.
We can borrow broadly from Lofland10 to provide a provisional summary
of what can be defined as public space, noting the presence of three core
components: ownership, accessibility, and assembly. Not all public spaces are
publicly owned, and not all are universally accessible or encourage the assembly
of all citizens in equal measure. These three components are part of a composite
system of classification. As long as one or more of these core elements is invoked
or implied in discursive practice we can say that we are dealing with public space.
Yet though helpful, this composite definition does not spare us further
analytical challenges. We wish to dwell especially on the way space becomes
public in practice. At some level the presence of an acknowledged public space
requires or implies a degree of intentionality. Certainly in the formal terms
understood by Sitte public space is the product of deliberate planning intention.
Yet the recurring question is whether actual space can ever be the product of pure
rational design, or if the multiplicity of forces involved in shaping spatial practice
is such that planning, even in the most autocratic settings, must be considered
an uncertain spatial practice, the outcomes of which may hold unexpected
surprises. One of the most stunning examples of the unintended consequences
of spatial planning practice in Rome is witnessed in the consequences of Pope
Boniface VIIIs efforts to establish a toll road on the Appian Way. Rather than
enrich his personal fortune, which he more than compensated through other
avenues, the establishment of a toll road led to the rise of an entirely new access
route to the city center, which later became the New Appian Way. The Old Way
was abandoned, and was later unearthed as a rare testimonial to ancient Romes
extraordinary road-building capacity.
The case of the New Appian Way is startling, lasting and still visible today.
More commonly the unintended use of public space goes unnoticed in the
official record, and undetected in historical accounts. Yet in citizen practice
which is susceptible to ethnographic investigation, some form of deviation is so
common as to justify the suspicion that it has been present in any historical age.

10
Lyn H. Lofland, The Public Realm. Exploring the Citys Quintessential Social Territory
(New Brunswick, 2009).

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

Frank and Stevens11 speak of loose space in this regard, and we might add our
conviction that no planned space in any historical period can be perfectly tight.
The history of loose spaces is difficult to write precisely because the constitutive
citizen actions are generally unrecorded. If such practices persist, they may
become incorporated in ensuing administrative decrees, obliterating memory of
the former deviant action. This is what Gadeyne describes in the rise of new road
networks in the late antique, expressing the tension between what de Certeau12
called strategies and tactics. Strategies are citizen actions which comply with the
intentional bounding of physical space, while tactics challenge the legitimacy of
these delimitations. De Certeau claims that such tension is always present in the
practice of everyday life. Yet it is difficult to detect in historical record precisely
because of the subversive nature of spatial tactics. We mention this tension
here because claims to public status at one level may not correspond to claims
advanced at another. A single space may be differently semanticized by different
individuals or groups, giving rise to rich meaning potential, not all of which can
be captured in the analysis of a given space in a given time.
In a study having the character of these essays, a multiplication of possible
layers of analysis is inevitable. What possible layers are involved? The physical
design of the city is by definition a part of the investigation. Ownership is an
optional issue, as is assembly. Politics at some level is a recurring theme. Shifts in
the distribution of power are mirrored in shifts within the physical orientation
of the city. Rulers from ancient times to modern have structured physical
space according to their political aims, often constraining ordinary spatial
practice in such a way as to legitimize their claim to power. Some chapters deal
with representations of space in painting and literature, and many deal with
architectural design. The specific themes are varied, but all the chapters cast an
analytical lens on the deployment of a spatialized idea of the public in selected
periods of the citys history.
Periodized Findings
It is a truism that physical space exists first in the mind and then in the senses.
Accepted conventions, including myths, impact powerfully the perception of
space, and from there the shape of the city. To take our case in point, Romes
foundation myth had powerful consequences for the form of the city already in
the classical period. In later periods the myth of Rome, embodied in the notion
11
Karen A. Franck and Quentin Stevens (eds), Loose Space. Possibility and Diversity in
Urban Life (London, 2007).
12
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, 1984).

Introduction

of romanit,13 had powerful consequences for the citys growth up to the present
day. In Republican Rome, and before, the idea of origins was critical to the citys
growth. The search for a single origin subtended the illusion of a single center,
a myth which collides with the citys long-established polycentric character. In
a celebrated speech of 1861, Cavour14 underscored the apparent univocality
of Romes symbolic stature when he noted that the city had stood for the
universality of the Empire first and that of the Church later. Rome could thus
stand as the symbolic and effective capital of the united nation. The factually
inaccurate suggestion of a monocentric Rome was functional to Cavours
rhetorical needs, as it was to many city builders before him.
The Campidoglio, hailed in the high Renaissance as the Umbilicus Urbis,
emerges as an urban center point relatively late in history. In the earliest times
the Aventines foundation legend made this Romes urban core. Royo analyzes
the citys gradual eastward growth, projecting out to the Roman forum in the
early Republican period, and then beyond with the construction of the Flavian
amphitheater, or the Colosseum as it is now known, in the second century AD.
Each successive effort to found afresh the Urbs under new leadership entailed a
propaganda system expressed inter alia by a public building program, and with it
a definition of new public spaces. Yet Romes obsession with historical precedent
was so cogent that no new foundation cancelled the effects of the previous urban
configuration, giving rise over time to a polycentric city further elaborated in
successive centuries.
As we know, the city continued to grow up until the late fourth century AD,
with an increasing abundance of public buildings, many of which sprang up in
the citys former periphery. The entire territory of the historic city, contained
within the arc of the Aurelian Walls, was dotted with public buildings having
diverse religious, political and social functions. The most spectacular of these
buildings were the citys public baths, often rivaled in their magnificence only
by the Colosseum itself. The greatest of the baths, the imperial thermae, were
an impressive feature of the cityscape which survived the cataclysmic changes
of the fifth century. The function of these pre-eminent public spaces changed in
the shifting circumstances which separated the classical antique from the early
Christian period. Italys loss of economic unity, and its political fragmentation,
deprived Rome of resources needed to maintain such grand public works. Yet
for a time the functionality of the thermae was assured by the Church on a
far more humble scale, as a welfare service for the urban poor. But with time
even this limited function subsided, as citizen practices changed, and public
John Agnew, Rome (Chichester, 1995).
Camillo Benso di Cavour, Discorsi Parlamentari (Florence, 1973).

13
14

Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

resources dwindled. Some thermae were converted into Christian places of

worship, others were despoiled to secure materials for new monuments. Others
survived as public testimonials to an extraordinary past which would provide
the inspiration to seek new glory.
The transformation of the city after the fifth century was complex, often driven
by spontaneous growth encouraged by the absence of an effective system of public
administration. An interesting case of spontaneous growth is furnished by the
Field of Mars, whose relatively remote location inhibited the Christianization
which transformed much of the rest of the city. Left largely to its own devices,
the unregulated hand of ordinary dwellers shaped urban transformations. Older
building complexes fell into decay, and new buildings arose in their stead. As the
form of the city changed, so did its functions, and its mobility needs. With no
effective administration available to address shared infrastructural concerns, urban
dwellers established new routes in a spontaneous fashion to connect dwellings
to diverse destinations. The result was a maze of winding streets that eventually
became so well consolidated as to provide the foundation for a new road network.
The network included Via delle Botteghe Oscure, a street which still today leads
up to the Campidoglio.
Spontaneous practice evolved thus into a formally defined public amenity, and
an aggregate of private spatial practices was transformed into an acknowledged
public service. There is a formal element to this, of course, although the
transformations are complex, so much so that by the turn of the Millennium, as
Yawn notes, a precise definition of public space was problematic at best. Public
streets existed, as did ancient bridges, docks, and city gates, alongside the ancient
wonders. But the trend was for former public spaces to come under the private
control of lay and ecclesiastical entities. Single churches established road tolls, or
tolls for passing through a gate. Powerful local families, such as the Frangipane
and the Pierleoni, fortified ancient monuments for personal use. The notion
of ownership itself was complicated by the distinction in Roman law between
ownership and possession, and much of what had previously been publicly owned
and publicly accessed was now under private possession and limited access. Various
forces competed to define the system of formal control, chief among which was
the senescent East Roman Empire, and a Church unable to speak in a single voice.
The complexity of the situation was compounded by the presence of powerful
families and their respective clienteles who vied for effective control of the citys
former public spaces.
It took centuries before the Church could present a compact front and
assert an exclusive claim to the government of the city. There was an extramural
dimension to this dilemma, for the Church was but one State among many in Italy
and Europe, and its political success was linked to the ability of its effective prince.

Introduction

Boniface VIII was particularly assertive in advocating papal claims to both spiritual
and temporal authority, and was one of the first popes to monumentalize his living
public presence to assist this aim. The particular instrument of public persuasion
was the benediction lodge which Boniface built at the Basilica of St. Johns on
the occasion of the 1300 Jubilee. The public forefronting of the popes person in
pursuing the Churchs temporal aims later became an engrained practice, most
spectacularly pursued by Pius II at the time of the 1450 Jubilee. Pius II was not only
a powerful prince and a spiritual leader, he was a learned scholar, and wished to call
attention to all these qualities in the design of a benediction lodge built under his
guidance at St Peters. It was a theatrical device deriving inspiration from classical
architecture, and made special reference to the grandeur of the Colosseum to
represent the Church as a single community united under the supreme authority
of the pope, placed on view for the benefit of citizens and pilgrims alike.
St. Peters was the natural center of Catholic Rome, as was St. Johns, and a
handful of other patriarchal basilicas. By around 1400 the Church was eager to
assert itself as a major political force in Italy and beyond, and this was reflected
in the citys transformation. Indeed Romes fragmented urban character was
gradually absorbed into an integrated design reflecting the consolidation of papal
power. Critical to the plan was development associated with the Field of Mars, cut
through by the Via del Corso. This area was marked by the presence of scattered
churches and monasteries, and various public buildings. At the top of the Corso
was Piazza del Popolo, the principle gate from which pilgrims entered on their way
to the tomb of St. Peter. This access point was indelibly monumentalized in the
early sixteenth century by the creation of the trident which mirrored the trident
at Ponte SantAngelo. These two spaces provided public witness to the doctrine of
the faith, one upon the pilgrims entry into the city, the other on the last stage of
the journey before crossing the River Tiber.
The Via del Corso strengthened the northsouth integration of the city, and
encouraged eastward expansion in the direction of the Campidoglio. This eastward
expansion was accompanied by important renovation works on the Capitol. On an
urban scale an eastwest tension was involved, especially under the papacy of Paul
III. Pauls Farnese family interests then centered on Palazzo Venezia, in proximity
of the Capitol Hill, while the interests of the Church centered on St. Peters. A
further tension concerned the spiritual as opposed to the civic aspirations of the
Church. These institutional and personal polarities were resolved in the felicitous
program Michelangelo conceived to unite St. Peters and the Campidoglio under a
single architectural motif. The giant orders furnished an unequivocal link between
these two locations, one representing the Churchs spiritual mission, the other its
civic role. They represented a creative re-evocation of the classical orders, which
combined with spatial proximity to Romes historical source to generate potent