Ancient Rome And The Modern Italian State

In this book, Alessandro Sebastiani examines how architecture and urbanism can be used to construct national identity. Using Rome as his case study, he explores how the city was transformed to accommodate different political ideologies in the period from 1870 to the end of World War II. After unification, Rome's classical architecture served as a reference point, guiding transformations of the urban fabric that met contemporary needs but also supported the agenda of the newly-formed Italian state. The advent of fascist state in the 1920s ushered in a different order of ideological placemaking. The monuments of ancient Roman were isolated in order to enhance their structural elegance, a scheme that powerfully conveyed political messages in support of Mussolini's regime. Sebastiani's volume offers a new approach to understanding the sophisticated relationships between archeology, urban planning, and politics within the city of Rome. Moreover, it highlights the consequences of suppressing historical evidence from monuments and archaeological sites.

After fifty years and fifteen editions and reprints in Italy, this classic, groundbreaking work in the field of historical urban studies is now published in English. A masterful, fluent narrative leads the reader through the last two centuries in the history of the Eternal City, capital of the Papal State, then of the united Italy, first under the monarchy and subsequently the republic. Rome’s chaotic growth and often ineffective urban planning, almost invariably overpowered by building speculation, can find an opportunity for future redemption in a vibrant multicultural society and the enhancement of an unequalled archaeological heritage with the ancient Appian Way as its spine. With respect to the last Italian edition of 2011, the volume is updated, enriched in text, indexes, maps and photographs. Historians, urban planners, architects, decision makers, university students, and anyone who is interested in one of the world’s most intriguing cities will enjoy this book.

Books VI-X of Livy's monumental work trace Rome's fortunes from its near collapse after defeat by the Gauls in 386 bc to its emergence, in a matter of decades, as the premier power in Italy, having conquered the city-state of Samnium in 293 bc. In this fascinating history, events are described not simply in terms of partisan politics, but through colourful portraits that bring the strengths, weaknesses and motives of leading figures such as the noble statesman Camillus and the corrupt Manlius vividly to life. While Rome's greatest chronicler intended his history to be a memorial to former glory, he also had more didactic aims - hoping that readers of his account could learn from the past ills and virtues of the city.

[A]n army of crusaders with the avowed purpose of pillage took possession of Constantinople, and after committing every outrage which can attend the sacking of a city, they bore away to Venice an amount of plunder which cannot be estimated, and which still clothes the city of the winged lion with gold and silver and jewels and priceless works of art. The four bronze horses, which adorn the portal to St. Mark's Church, were a part of this disgraceful spoil. -from Chapter III OF INTEREST TO: readers of European and classical history With a verve and liveliness worthy of a novelist, American writer MARY PLATT PARMELE (1843-1911) put her unique stamp on world history with her series of clever, concise histories, condensed tales of the world's great nations that encompassed the essential facts necessary for appreciating the state of the world as she saw it. With this book, first published in 1901 and updated in 1908, she outlines the vital and extraordinary history of Rome and Italy. From the flight of Aeneas from the burning of Troy to the battles between the Vatican and Rome in the early 20th century, this is the exciting and inspiring tale of the place that is the cornerstone of modern global civilization. Parmele's books available from Cosimo Classics include: * The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of France * The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of the United States * A Short History of France * A Short History of Germany * A Short History of Spain * A Short History of England, Ireland and Scotland

Every Greek and every friend of the country knows the date 1821, when the banner of revolution was raised against the empire of the Ottoman Turks, and the story of 'Modern Greece' is usually said to begin. Less well known, but of even greater importance, was the international recognition given to Greece as an independent state with full sovereign rights, as early as 1830. This places Greece in the vanguard among the new nation-states of Europe whose emergence would gather momentum through to the early twentieth century, a process whose repercussions continue to this day. Starting out from that perspective, which has been all but ignored until now, this book brings together the work of scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the contribution of characteristically nineteenth-century European modes of thought to the 'making' of Greece as a modern nation. Closely linked to nationalism is romanticism, which exercised a formative role through imaginative literature, as is demonstrated in several chapters on poetry and fiction. Under the broad heading 'uses of the past', other chapters consider ways in which the legacies, first of ancient Greece, then later of Byzantium, came to be mobilized in the construction of a durable national identity at once 'Greek' and 'modern'. The Making of Modern Greece aims to situate the Greek experience, as never before, within the broad context of current theoretical and historical thinking about nations and nationalism in the modern world. The book spans the period from 1797, when Rigas Velestinlis published a constitution for an imaginary 'Hellenic Republic', at the cost of his life, to the establishment of the modern Olympic Games, in Athens in 1896, an occasion which sealed with international approval the hard-won self-image of 'Modern Greece' as it had become established over the previous century.

Every Greek and every friend of the country knows the date 1821, when the banner of revolution was raised against the empire of the Ottoman Turks, and the story of 'Modern Greece' is usually said to begin. Less well known, but of even greater importance, was the international recognition given to Greece as an independent state with full sovereign rights, as early as 1830. This places Greece in the vanguard among the new nation-states of Europe whose emergence would gather momentum through to the early twentieth century, a process whose repercussions continue to this day. Starting out from that perspective, which has been all but ignored until now, this book brings together the work of scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore the contribution of characteristically nineteenth-century European modes of thought to the 'making' of Greece as a modern nation. Closely linked to nationalism is romanticism, which exercised a formative role through imaginative literature, as is demonstrated in several chapters on poetry and fiction. Under the broad heading 'uses of the past', other chapters consider ways in which the legacies, first of ancient Greece, then later of Byzantium, came to be mobilized in the construction of a durable national identity at once 'Greek' and 'modern'. The Making of Modern Greece aims to situate the Greek experience, as never before, within the broad context of current theoretical and historical thinking about nations and nationalism in the modern world. The book spans the period from 1797, when Rigas Velestinlis published a constitution for an imaginary 'Hellenic Republic', at the cost of his life, to the establishment of the modern Olympic Games, in Athens in 1896, an occasion which sealed with international approval the hard-won self-image of 'Modern Greece' as it had become established over the previous century.