The perception of ancient monuments in an urban context: the case of the Imperial Fora in Rome

The aspect of a modern city is the result of a process of transformation and evolutionof its elements over centuries: the growth of the city, in connection with the evolutionof the society, creates over long time spans dynamics of urban fabrics that lead oldand new buildings to live together. Modern cities result therefore from thestratification of layers from different periods: each of them had its own ruins, its ownpast and its own way of perceiving the ruins from the past.The present research deals with the main question of the perception of ancient ruinsin the city of Rome and in particular on the area of the Imperial Fora between the 16thand the 19th century. The interest is in particular in the role that ruins had for thosepeople who lived, worked or travelled in the area previously occupied by the ImperialFora , where a dense district developed over the ruins between the 16th and the 19thcentury. Since the specific interest is on the perception that people living in the cityhad of ruins and ancient monuments, the research is centred on the analysis of writtensources, with a focus on topographical descriptions, guidebooks, and archival sources.In this framework, the present research investigates how people living in the districtperceived, approached and referred to the ruins still visible in the district, as well asthe ways in which transformation of the urban setting affected and changed theperception which artists, scholars, travellers and inhabitants had of the ruins.