The Lives of a Roman Neighborhood
Tracing the Imprint of the Past, from 500 BCE to the Present

Takes one of the world's longest continuously occupied urban neighborhoods and explores the trace of early development on the future space.

Paul W. Jacobs, II (Author)

9781316512630, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 December 2022

256 pages
26 x 18.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.72 kg

'With its impressive chronological sweep and relentless problem-solving approach, Jacobs's book offers the most ambitious case study yet of urban process in Rome.' T. Corey Brennan, Times Literary Supplement

In this book, Paul Jacobs traces the history of a neighborhood situated in the heart of Rome over twenty-five centuries. Here, he considers how topography and location influenced its long urban development. During antiquity, the forty-plus acre, flood-prone site on the Tiber's edge was transformed from a meadow near a crossroads into the imperial Circus Flaminius, with its temples, colonnades, and a massive theater. Later, it evolved into a bustling medieval and early modern residential and commercial district known as the Sant'Angelo rione. Subsequently, the neighborhood enclosed Rome's Ghetto. Today, it features an archaeological park and tourist venues, and it is still the heart of Rome's Jewish community. Jacobs' study explores the impact of physical alterations on the memory of lost topographical features. He also posits how earlier development may be imprinted upon the landscape, or preserved to influence future changes.

1. Remembering the meadowlands: The Prata Flaminia and the circus of Gaius Flaminius, circa 500–217 BCE
2. Setting out line: The republican circus, 217–44 BCE
3. Fit for an emperor: Creating the Augustan circus, 44 BCE–14 CE
4. The long show ends: The imperial circus through the gothic war, 14–554 CE
5. Repurposing space in the early medieval era, 554–circa 1000
6. Filling in the blanks: Developing Sant'Angelo Rione, circa 1000–1347
7. Growth and decline along a commercial corridor, 1347–1555
8. Two Rioni in one:Sant'Angelo and its ghetto, 1555–1800
9. Old walls razed, new walls built: Urban renewal on the Tiber's edge, 1800–1908
10. Travertine and Stolpersteine: Remembering the past at different levels, 1908–present.

Subject Areas: Landscape archaeology [HDL], Classical Greek & Roman archaeology [HDDK], Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1]