"Discoloring Towns": The Perception of Changes and Transformations in Urban Texture and Monumental Apparatus of Late Antique Rome (20 min)

Presenters

Cristina Corsi, University of Cassino

Abstract

Recent excavations and publication of late antique and early medieval archaeological contexts from Rome present an opportunity to have a much deeper insight into the transformation of the urbs during and after the fall of the western empire. This abundance of archaeological evidence, combined with contemporary textual sources, highlights a structural transformation of Roman society mirrored in a noticeable change in the town’s built environment. Material and textual sources concur in drafting a new picture of Rome during late antiquity, where the border between deconstruction/neofunctionalization and transformation/conversion is impalpable and shady. The new urban image that came into being during these decades is archaeologically well-depicted. However, the perception of these changes, how perceptions affected the process of cultural transition and how they influenced the relationship between citizens and the built environment has not yet been placed at the center of the scholarly debate.

The archaeological evidence relating to the conversion of secular buildings into Christian churches, the presence of burials in the intramural space, the disruption of private mansions, the corruption of the urban fabric, the decadence of public buildings, and the traces of small- and large-scale operations of spoliation and reuse can be paralleled to other sets of sources (juridical, literary, and epigraphic) to shed light on this process of change of mentality. The analysis (carried out with methods of environmental behavior studies) leads to the conclusion that—as space is given meaning through the people who use it and the activities carried out in it—the policymakers of late antique Rome, although feeling that the built environment was “discoloring” and the “urbs was fading” (Cod. Theod., Nov. Maior. 4, 458 CE), made sense of this transition and coped with it, shifting their approach to urban space and keeping the focus on urban practice.