The Aurelian Wall and the Refashioning of Imperial Rome, AD 271–855
Cambridge University Press, 4/7/2011
EAN 9780521763653, ISBN10: 0521763657
Hardcover, 378 pages, 24.7 x 17.4 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
This book explores the relationship between the city of Rome and the Aurelian Wall during the six centuries following its construction in the 270s AD, a period when the city changed and contracted almost beyond recognition, as it evolved from imperial capital into the spiritual center of Western Christendom. The Wall became the single most prominent feature in the urban landscape, a dominating presence which came bodily to incarnate the political, legal, administrative, and religious boundaries of urbs Roma, even as it reshaped both the physical contours of the city as a whole and the mental geographies of 'Rome' that prevailed at home and throughout the known world. With the passage of time, the circuit took on a life of its own as the embodiment of Rome's past greatness, a cultural and architectural legacy that dwarfed the quotidian realities of the post-imperial city as much as it shaped them.
Introduction
1. Toward an architectural history of the Aurelian Wall, from its beginnings through the ninth century
2. Planning, building, rebuilding, and maintenance
the logistical dynamics of a (nearly) interminable project
3. Motives, meaning, and context
the Aurelian Wall and the late Roman state
4. The city, the suburbs, and the wall
the rise of a topographical institution
5. Sacred geography, interrupted
6. The Wall and the 'Republic of St Peter'
Conclusion
Appendices.