Word origin of rome

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• Rom, Roome, Room, Rhoome, Romme, Rowme, Roym, Rum (archaic)
• Roma (uncommon)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English Rome, from Old English Rōm, Rūm, from Proto-Germanic *Rūmō and influenced by Late Latin Rōma (“Rome, Constantinople”), from Classical Latin Rōma (“Rome”). In Roman mythology, the name was said to derive from Romulus, one of the founders of the city and its first king.

The name appears in a wide range of forms in Middle English, including Rom, Room, Roome, and Rombe as well as Rome; by early modern English, it appeared as Rome, Room, and Roome, with the spelling Rome occurring in Shakespeare and common from the early 18th century on. The final spelling was influenced by Norman, Middle French, Anglo-Norman, and Old French Rome.^[1]

Pronunciation[edit]

• (UK), enPR: rōm, IPA^(key): /ɹəʊm/, (archaic, dialectal) IPA^(key): /ɹum/
• (US), enPR: rōm, IPA^(key): /ɹoʊm/
• Rhymes: -əʊm
• Homophones: roam, Rom

Proper noun[edit]

Rome

1. A city on the Tiber River on the Italian peninsula; ancient capital of the Roman Empire; capital city of Italy; capital city of the region of Lazio.

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], line 157:

     When could they say (till now) that talk’d of Rome,
     That her wide Walles incompast but one man?
     Now is it Rome indeed, and Roome enough
     When there is in it but one onely man.

   • 1866 December 8, ‘Filius Ecclesiæ’, Notes & Queries, «Rome:Room», 456 1:

     Within the last thirty weeks I have heard the word Rome pronounced Room by several old-fashioned people in the north of Ireland, some of my own relations among the number. On remonstrating with one of these, she said, «It was always Room when I was at school (say about 1830), and I am too old to change it now.»

2. A metropolitan city of Lazio, Italy.
3. (metonymically) The Italian government.

   • 2016, Tiedtke, Per, chapter 2, in Germany, Italy and the International Economy 1929–1936: Co-operation or Rivalries at Times of Crisis?‎^[1], Europe: Tectum Verlag, →ISBN, page 99:

     At first, Berlin tried to amend the agreement to restore a German trade surplus, but Rome refused.

4. Ancient Rome; the former Roman Empire; Roman civilization.

   • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], line 82:

     These that suruiue, let Rome reward with loue.

   • 1709, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Criticism, London: […] W. Lewis […], published 1711, →OCLC, page 39:

     Learning and Rome alike in Empire grew,
     And Arts still follow’d where her Eagles flew;
     From the same Foes [viz., Tyranny and Superstition], at last, both felt their Doom,
     And the same Age saw Learning fall, and Rome.

   • 1821, Lord Byron, Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. An Historical Tragedy, in Five Acts. […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 149:

     A wife’s dishonour unking’d Rome for ever.

5. The Holy See, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly prior to the establishment of the Vatican City in the 19th century.
   • 1537 January 26, T. Starkey, letter:

     The wych you perauenture wyl impute to thys defectyon from Rome.

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

6. The Church of Rome, the Roman Catholic Church generally.

   • c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], line 7:

7. A number of places in the United States:
   1. An unincorporated community in Covington County, Alabama.
   2. A city, the county seat of Floyd County, Georgia.
   3. A census-designated place in Peoria County, Illinois.
   4. An unincorporated community in Perry County, Indiana.
   5. A village in Henry County, Iowa.
   6. A ghost town in Ellis County, Kansas.
   7. An unincorporated community in Sumner County, Kansas.
   8. An unincorporated community in Daviess County, Kentucky.
   9. A town in Kennebec County, Maine.
   10. An unincorporated community in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
   11. An unincorporated community in Douglas County, Missouri.
   12. A city in Oneida County, New York.
   13. A village in Green Township, Adams County, Ohio.

       Synonym: Stout (the name of the post office)

   14. An unincorporated community in Delaware County, Ohio.
   15. A ghost town in Morrow County, Ohio.
   16. An unincorporated community in Richland County, Ohio.
   17. An unincorporated community in Malheur County, Oregon.
   18. A borough in Bradford County, Pennsylvania.
   19. An unincorporated community in Smith County, Tennessee.
   20. A town and unincorporated community in Adams County, Wisconsin.
   21. A census-designated place in Jefferson County, Wisconsin.
8. A surname.

Synonyms[edit]

• (archaic) Romeburg, Romeburgh, Romeland, Romelede, Romethede, Rome town
• (dated) Rome city
• Istanbul, Constantinople (new Rome)
• Moscow (third Rome, new Rome)

Derived terms[edit]

• Romes
• Roman
• Rome rule, Rome Rule
• when in Rome, do as the Romans do
• Rome was not built in a day
• do not sit in Rome and strive with the Pope
• all roads lead to Rome
• go to Rome with a mortar on one’s head
• (dated) Romish

Descendants[edit]

• → Georgian: რომი (romi)
• → Hindi: रोम (rom)
• → Thai: โรม (room)

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• Roma
• Romania
• romance, romantic
• Romulan

References[edit]

Anagrams[edit]

• -more, Mero, More, Omer, Orem, Orme, erom, mero, mero-, moer, more, omer

Dutch[edit]

Etymology[edit]

• (capital of Italy) From Middle Dutch rome.
• (Maasdriel) First attested as Rome in 1830-1855. Named after the Italian city, allegedly because many Roman artefacts were found there.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈroː.mə/
• Hyphenation: Ro‧me
• Rhymes: -oːmə

Proper noun[edit]

Rome n

1. Rome (the capital city of Italy)
2. Rome (a metropolitan city of Lazio, Italy)
3. A hamlet in Maasdriel, Gelderland, Netherlands.

Descendants[edit]

• Afrikaans: Rome

References[edit]

• van Berkel, Gerard; Samplonius, Kees (2018) Nederlandse plaatsnamen verklaard (in Dutch), Mijnbestseller.nl, →ISBN

Anagrams[edit]

• moer, more, roem

Finnish[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From English Rome.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈrome/, [ˈro̞me̞]
• IPA^(key): /ˈrou̯m/, [ˈro̞u̯m]
• Rhymes: -ome
• Syllabification^(key): ro‧me

Proper noun[edit]

Rome

1. Rome (any of a number of localities in USA or elsewhere)

Declension[edit]

Inflection of Rome (Kotus type 8/nalle, no gradation)
nominative	Rome	—
genitive	Romen	—
partitive	Romea	—
illative	Romeen	—
	singular	plural
nominative	Rome	—
accusative	nom.	Rome	—
gen.	Romen
genitive	Romen	—
partitive	Romea	—
inessive	Romessa	—
elative	Romesta	—
illative	Romeen	—
adessive	Romella	—
ablative	Romelta	—
allative	Romelle	—
essive	Romena	—
translative	Romeksi	—
instructive	—	—
abessive	Rometta	—
comitative	See the possessive forms below.

Possessive forms of Rome (type nalle)

first-person singular possessor singular plural nominative Romeni — accusative nom. Romeni — gen. Romeni genitive Romeni — partitive Romeani — inessive Romessani — elative Romestani — illative Romeeni — adessive Romellani — ablative Romeltani — allative Romelleni — essive Romenani — translative Romekseni — instructive — — abessive Romettani — comitative — — second-person singular possessor singular plural nominative Romesi — accusative nom. Romesi — gen. Romesi genitive Romesi — partitive Romeasi — inessive Romessasi — elative Romestasi — illative Romeesi — adessive Romellasi — ablative Romeltasi — allative Romellesi — essive Romenasi — translative Romeksesi — instructive — — abessive Romettasi — comitative — — first-person plural possessor singular plural nominative Romemme — accusative nom. Romemme — gen. Romemme genitive Romemme — partitive Romeamme — inessive Romessamme — elative Romestamme — illative Romeemme — adessive Romellamme — ablative Romeltamme — allative Romellemme — essive Romenamme — translative Romeksemme — instructive — — abessive Romettamme — comitative — — second-person plural possessor singular plural nominative Romenne — accusative nom. Romenne — gen. Romenne genitive Romenne — partitive Romeanne — inessive Romessanne — elative Romestanne — illative Romeenne — adessive Romellanne — ablative Romeltanne — allative Romellenne — essive Romenanne — translative Romeksenne — instructive — — abessive Romettanne — comitative — — third-person possessor singular plural nominative Romensa — accusative nom. Romensa — gen. Romensa genitive Romensa — partitive Romeaan Romeansa — inessive Romessaan Romessansa — elative Romestaan Romestansa — illative Romeensa — adessive Romellaan Romellansa — ablative Romeltaan Romeltansa — allative Romelleen Romellensa — essive Romenaan Romenansa — translative Romekseen Romeksensa — instructive — — abessive Romettaan Romettansa — comitative — —

French[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Old French Rome, from Latin Rōma.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ʁɔm/
• Homophones: rhum, ROM

Proper noun[edit]

Rome f

1. Rome (the capital city of Italy)
2. Rome (a metropolitan city of Lazio, Italy)

Derived terms[edit]

• à Rome, fais comme les Romains
• Nouvelle Rome
• Rome antique
• Rome ne s’est pas faite en un jour
• tous les chemins mènent à Rome

Descendants[edit]

• Guianese Creole: Ròm
• Haitian Creole: Wòm
• Lao: ໂຣມ (rōm)

Anagrams[edit]

• more, More, orme

Friulian[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Rome f

1. Rome

[edit]

• roman
• romanesc

Italian[edit]

Proper noun[edit]

Rome f

1. plural of Roma

   le due Rome, the two Romes

Anagrams[edit]

• -mero, Remo, ermo, mero, more, orme, remo, remò

Middle English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• Roome, Rombe, Rume, Room, Rom

Etymology[edit]

From Old English Rōm, from Proto-West Germanic *Rūmu, from Proto-Germanic *Rūmō, from Latin Rōma.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈroːm(ə)/, /ˈrɔːm(ə)/
• Rhymes: -oːm(ə), -ɔːm(ə)

Proper noun[edit]

Rome

1. Rome (a city, the capital of the Papacy; ancient capital of the Roman Empire)
   • c. 1382 (date written)​, Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “Boetius de consolatione Philosophie. The Fyrst Boke.”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London: […] Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, →OCLC, folio ccxxxv, recto, column 1:

     But now I am removed from the cyte of Rome almoſt .V.C.M. paas, I am wythoute defence dampned to pꝛoscrepcion and to deathe […]

     But now I’ve been sent almost 500,000 paces from the city of Rome; I am without defence, sentenced to exile and death.

   • c. 1386–1388 (date written)​, Geffray Chaucer [i.e., Geoffrey Chaucer], “The Legende of Good Women: The Legende of Lucresse of Rome”, in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London: […] Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], published 1542, →OCLC, folio ccxxv, verso, column 2:

     Ne never was ther king in Rome towne / Syns thilke day, ⁊ ſhe was holden there […]

     There was never a king in Rome after that day, and she was seen there […]

2. The Roman Empire.

Descendants[edit]

• English: Rome
• Scots: Roum, Rome

References[edit]

• “Rọ̄me, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-04-01.

Old French[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• Rume, Rumme (Anglo-Norman)

Etymology[edit]

From Latin Rōma.

Proper noun[edit]

Rome

1. Rome (a city, the capital of the Papacy; ancient capital of the Roman Empire)

Descendants[edit]

• French: Rome
  • Guianese Creole: Ròm
  • Haitian Creole: Wòm
  • Lao: ໂຣມ (rōm)
• Norman: Rome
• Picard: Rome
• Walloon: Rome

Walloon[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ʀɔm/

Proper noun[edit]

Rome

1. Rome (the capital city of Italy)

For as long as I can remember, I heard Rome was named after Romulus and that the naming was done by Romulus himself after he killed his brother Remus. This made sense to me as even in today’s English you can see the connection between the words Romulus and Rome. I did think Rome was named after Romulus, mostly because that’s what I had been told for years, but I’ve recently changed my mind on this after reviewing the information below.

It turns out that the leading theory on the etymology of Romulus is that his name means “of Rome”. This etymology struck me as odd, given that for Romulus to acquire his name, this city of which he is named after would already have to have a name. Given this etymology, the idea that Romulus named the city or that the city was named after Romulus cannot be true, as he is named after the city. But from where does the name of the city originate?

Roma, Romulus, and Remus are Latin names. The Latin words in this case are based upon Greek words. In Greek, “Rome” [Ρώμη] means “power,” “force,” “fighting army” and “speed tactics”. H. G. Liddell and R. Scot argue that the Latin Roma stems from a Greek verb, roomai, which among other things means “to rush/rush on”.^[2] I note here that the English word “rush” shares a similar sound to the word Rasna (or Rasenna), which is what the Etruscans called themselves. Rasenna currently has an unknown etymology. It is also close to the word Rus, which is where the word Russia finds its root. The similarity in sound and spelling is not highly significant in and of itself, but given more variables, the idea of a deeper connectedness appears to me to gain more gravity. I explore this more below. Keep in mind that in the legend, when Romulus and Remus were babies, they were abandoned and thrown into the River Tiber.

F. Knauer (Moscow, 1901) traced the etymology of Rus to the Persian name for the Volga, which is ولگا. Prof. George Vernadsky suggested that it stems from the Aryan word for water/moisture. Both etymologies are associated with water, thus, Rus is associated with water, same as the origin of Romulus and Remus. Another idea is that it can be traced to Rosh from the Biblical book of Ezekial. Additionally, there are claims that the word Rus stems from an Old Norse term for “men who row”.^[3] Altogether, these ideas lead me to conclude that the original word that inspired Rus was used to refer to people who navigated the rivers. I also now think that Rus and Rome may share a similar root word. Another possibility might be that this is explained by both of their origin stories involving the existence of a mighty river.

Personally, I couldn’t help but notice that the Persian name for Volga looks somewhat similar to a reverse writing of the Greek name for Rome. Note the way Romulus and Remus’ names are written on the mosaic in the header image. The PW is somewhat separated from the rest of their names. Whether this is coincidence or something more is for someone else to decide, I just wanted to point it out in light of drawing connections between all these words with obscure origins.

Reportedly, the name Remus descends from a word meaning “twin”. The Latin Remus could also descend from the Ancient Greek words eretmós (oar) or erétēs, (rower).^{[4], [5]} I think these are both reasonable ancestor words for Remus, as Romulus and him were twins and both survived the river. Another note to make is that while rowing with one oar can help you navigate the waters, rowing with two oars is where the magic happens.

The other “founder” of Rome, Aeneas, may also play a role here, given his legendary voyages prior to founding the city. The etymology for his name is obscure and mysterious. Possibly it means “”praise-worthy,” from ainos “tale, story, saying, praise” (related to enigma); or perhaps related to ainos “horrible, terrible.””^[6] Whatever the case may be, both foundation stories (that of Aeneas and that of the twins) both feature an important part involving navigating the waters.

I think a more exhaustive study on the origins of the words Rome, Romulus, and Remus (as well as Rus and Rasenna) will need to be conducted before generating any serious convictions on the topic. Right now, I think the best explanation as to how the characters obtained their names is that the name were assigned to them later on as nicknames to be remembered by. The words from which these nicknames descend is still debatable. This article sums up my preliminary observations.

Click here to see how Romulus and Remus have been depicted in art throughout the centuries.

References:

[1] – Cabrejas, Enrique. “Rome. The Etymological Origins” (2016). http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2016-16/Cabrejas_16.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1-u55Xx56g3sCuSORChhXvCAKArSIGE6ygjAH94jcXMnT_JBRtj_DVUDg. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

[2] – “Etymology of Rome” (12 Apr. 2019). https://ewonago.blogspot.com/2009/04/etymology-of-rome.html. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

[3] – Wiejack, Marta. “Here’s Why Russia Is Called Russia” (18 Jun. 2018). https://theculturetrip.com/europe/russia/articles/heres-why-russia-is-called-russia/. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

[4] – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Remus. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

[5] – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/remus. Accessed 9 Dec. 2019.

[6] – https://www.etymonline.com/word/aeneas. Accessed 9 Sept. 2020.

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Rome Roma (Italian)
Capital city and comune
Roma Capitale
Clockwise from top: the Colosseum; St. Peter’s Basilica; Castel Sant’Angelo; Ponte Sant’Angelo; Trevi Fountain; and the Pantheon. Clicking an image in the collage causes the browser to load the appropriate article.
Flag Coat of arms
Etymology: Possibly Etruscan: Rumon, lit. ‘river’ (See Etymology).
Nickname(s):  Urbs Aeterna (Latin) The Eternal City Caput Mundi (Latin) The Capital of the world Throne of St. Peter
The territory of the comune (Roma Capitale, in red) inside the Metropolitan City of Rome (Città Metropolitana di Roma, in yellow). The white spot in the centre is Vatican City.
Rome Location within Italy Rome Location within Europe
Coordinates: 41°53′36″N 12°28′58″E / 41.89333°N 12.48278°ECoordinates: 41°53′36″N 12°28′58″E / 41.89333°N 12.48278°E
Country	Italy[a]
Region	Lazio
Metropolitan city	Rome Capital
Founded	753 BC
Founded by	King Romulus (legendary)[1]
Government
• Type	Strong Mayor–Council
• Mayor	Roberto Gualtieri (PD)
• Legislature	Capitoline Assembly
Area
• Total	1,285 km2 (496.3 sq mi)
Elevation	21 m (69 ft)
Population  (31 December 2019)
• Rank	1st in Italy (3rd in the EU)
• Density	2,236/km2 (5,790/sq mi)
• Comune	2,860,009[2]
• Metropolitan City	4,342,212[3]
Demonym(s)	Italian: romano(i) (masculine), romana(e) (feminine) English: Roman(s)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
CAP code(s)	00100; 00118 to 00199
Area code	06
Website	comune.roma.it
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura
Reference	91
Inscription	1980 (4th Session)
Area	1,431 ha (3,540 acres)

Rome (Italian and Latin: Roma [ˈroːma] (listen)) is the capital city of Italy. It is also the capital of the Lazio region, the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, and a special comune named Comune di Roma Capitale. With 2,860,009 residents in 1,285 km² (496.1 sq mi),^[2] Rome is the country’s most populated comune and the third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome, with a population of 4,355,725 residents, is the most populous metropolitan city in Italy.^[3] Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy.^[4] Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. Vatican City (the smallest country in the world)^[5] is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often referred to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geographic location, and also as the «Eternal City».^[6] Rome is generally considered to be the «cradle of Western civilization and Christian culture», and the centre of the Catholic Church.^[7][8][9]

Rome’s history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it a major human settlement for almost three millennia and one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe.^[10] The city’s early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded by many as the first-ever Imperial city and metropolis.^[11] It was first called The Eternal City (Latin: Urbs Aeterna; Italian: La Città Eterna) by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy.^[12][13] Rome is also called «Caput Mundi» (Capital of the World). After the fall of the Empire in the west, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy, and in the 8th century, it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance, almost all popes since Nicholas V (1447–1455) pursued a coherent architectural and urban programme over four hundred years, aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world.^[14] In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Renaissance^[15] and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors, and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic.

In 2019, Rome was the 14th most visited city in the world, with 8.6 million tourists, the third most visited city in the European Union, and the most popular tourist destination in Italy.^[16] Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.^[17] The host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is also the seat of several specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The city also hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean^[18] (UfM) as well as the headquarters of many international businesses, such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo, and banks such as BNL. Numerous companies are based within Rome’s EUR business district, such as the luxury fashion house Fendi located in the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. The presence of renowned international brands in the city has made Rome an important centre of fashion and design, and the Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies.^[19]

Etymology

According to the Ancient Romans’ founding myth,^[20] the name Roma came from the city’s founder and first king, Romulus.^[1]

However, it is possible that the name Romulus was actually derived from Rome itself.^[21] As early as the 4th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which however remain uncertain:^[22]

• From Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn is supposedly related to the Greek verb ῥέω (rhéō) ‘to flow, stream’ and the Latin verb ruō ‘to hurry, rush’;^[b]
• From the Etruscan word 𐌓𐌖𐌌𐌀 (ruma), whose root is *rum- «teat», with possible reference either to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately named twins Romulus and Remus, or to the shape of the Palatine and Aventine Hills;
• From the Greek word ῥώμη (rhṓmē), which means strength.^[c]

History

Earliest history

While there have been discoveries of archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from approximately 14,000 years ago, the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.^[10] Evidence of stone tools, pottery, and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village (on the Capitol Hill, a village is attested since the end of the 14th century BC).^[23] However, none of them yet had an urban quality.^[23] Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed gradually through the aggregation («synoecism») of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine.^[23] This aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which also allowed the establishment of secondary and tertiary activities. These, in turn, boosted the development of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy (mainly Ischia and Cumae).^[23] These developments, which according to archaeological evidence took place during the mid-eighth century BC, can be considered as the «birth» of the city.^[23] Despite recent excavations at the Palatine hill, the view that Rome was founded deliberately in the middle of the eighth century BC, as the legend of Romulus suggests, remains a fringe hypothesis.^[24]

Legend of the founding of Rome

Traditional stories handed down by the ancient Romans themselves explain the earliest history of their city in terms of legend and myth. The most familiar of these myths, and perhaps the most famous of all Roman myths, is the story of Romulus and Remus, the twins who were suckled by a she-wolf.^[20] They decided to build a city, but after an argument, Romulus killed his brother and the city took his name. According to the Roman annalists, this happened on 21 April 753 BC.^[25] This legend had to be reconciled with a dual tradition, set earlier in time, that had the Trojan refugee Aeneas escape to Italy and found the line of Romans through his son Iulus, the namesake of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.^[26]
This was accomplished by the Roman poet Virgil in the first century BC. In addition, Strabo mentions an older story, that the city was an Arcadian colony founded by Evander. Strabo also writes that Lucius Coelius Antipater believed that Rome was founded by Greeks.^[27][28]

Monarchy and republic

After the foundation by Romulus according to a legend,^[25] Rome was ruled for a period of 244 years by a monarchical system, initially with sovereigns of Latin and Sabine origin, later by Etruscan kings. The tradition handed down seven kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.^[25]

In 509 BC, the Romans expelled the last king from their city and established an oligarchic republic. Rome then began a period characterised by internal struggles between patricians (aristocrats) and plebeians (small landowners), and by constant warfare against the populations of central Italy: Etruscans, Latins, Volsci, Aequi, and Marsi.^[29] After becoming master of Latium, Rome led several wars (against the Gauls, Osci-Samnites and the Greek colony of Taranto, allied with Pyrrhus, king of Epirus) whose result was the conquest of the Italian peninsula, from the central area up to Magna Graecia.^[30]

The third and second century BC saw the establishment of Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean and the Balkans, through the three Punic Wars (264–146 BC) fought against the city of Carthage and the three Macedonian Wars (212–168 BC) against Macedonia.^[31] The first Roman provinces were established at this time: Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Hispania, Macedonia, Achaea and Africa.^[32]

From the beginning of the 2nd century BC, power was contested between two groups of aristocrats: the optimates, representing the conservative part of the Senate, and the populares, which relied on the help of the plebs (urban lower class) to gain power. In the same period, the bankruptcy of the small farmers and the establishment of large slave estates caused large-scale migration to the city. The continuous warfare led to the establishment of a professional army, which turned out to be more loyal to its generals than to the republic. Because of this, in the second half of the second century and during the first century BC there were conflicts both abroad and internally: after the failed attempt of social reform of the populares Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus,^[33] and the war against Jugurtha,^[33] there was a civil war from which the general Sulla emerged victorious.^[33] A major slave revolt under Spartacus followed,^[34] and then the establishment of the first Triumvirate with Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.^[34]

The conquest of Gaul made Caesar immensely powerful and popular, which led to a second civil war against the Senate and Pompey. After his victory, Caesar established himself as dictator for life.^[34] His assassination led to a second Triumvirate among Octavian (Caesar’s grandnephew and heir), Mark Antony and Lepidus, and to another civil war between Octavian and Antony.^[35]

Empire

In 27 BC, Octavian became princeps civitatis and took the title of Augustus, founding the principate, a diarchy between the princeps and the senate.^[35] During the reign of Nero, two thirds of the city was ruined after the Great Fire of Rome, and the persecution of Christians commenced.^[36][37][38] Rome was established as a de facto empire, which reached its greatest expansion in the second century under the Emperor Trajan. Rome was confirmed as caput Mundi, i.e. the capital of the known world, an expression which had already been used in the Republican period. During its first two centuries, the empire was ruled by emperors of the Julio-Claudian,^[39] Flavian (who also built an eponymous amphitheatre, known as the Colosseum),^[39] and Antonine dynasties.^[40] This time was also characterised by the spread of the Christian religion, preached by Jesus Christ in Judea in the first half of the first century (under Tiberius) and popularised by his apostles through the empire and beyond.^[41] The Antonine age is considered the zenith of the Empire, whose territory ranged from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates and from Britain to Egypt.^[40]

After the end of the Severan Dynasty in 235, the Empire entered into a 50-year period known as the Crisis of the Third Century during which there were numerous putsches by generals, who sought to secure the region of the empire they were entrusted with due to the weakness of central authority in Rome. There was the so-called Gallic Empire from 260 to 274 and the revolts of Zenobia and her father from the mid-260s which sought to fend off Persian incursions. Some regions – Britain, Spain, and North Africa – were hardly affected. Instability caused economic deterioration, and there was a rapid rise in inflation as the government debased the currency in order to meet expenses. The Germanic tribes along the Rhine and north of the Balkans made serious, uncoordinated incursions from the 250s–280s that were more like giant raiding parties rather than attempts to settle. The Persian Empire invaded from the east several times during the 230s to 260s but were eventually defeated.^[44] Emperor Diocletian (284) undertook the restoration of the State. He ended the Principate and introduced the Tetrarchy which sought to increase state power. The most marked feature was the unprecedented intervention of the State down to the city level: whereas the State had submitted a tax demand to a city and allowed it to allocate the charges, from his reign the State did this down to the village level. In a vain attempt to control inflation, he imposed price controls which did not last. He or Constantine regionalised the administration of the empire which fundamentally changed the way it was governed by creating regional dioceses (the consensus seems to have shifted from 297 to 313/14 as the date of creation due to the argument of Constantin Zuckerman in 2002 «Sur la liste de Verone et la province de grande armenie, Melanges Gilber Dagron). The existence of regional fiscal units from 286 served as the model for this unprecedented innovation. The emperor quickened the process of removing military command from governors. Henceforth, civilian administration and military command would be separate. He gave governors more fiscal duties and placed them in charge of the army logistical support system as an attempt to control it by removing the support system from its control. Diocletian ruled the eastern half, residing in Nicomedia. In 296, he elevated Maximian to Augustus of the western half, where he ruled mostly from Mediolanum when not on the move.^[44] In 292, he created two ‘junior’ emperors, the Caesars, one for each Augustus, Constantius for Britain, Gaul, and Spain whose seat of power was in Trier and Galerius in Sirmium in the Balkans. The appointment of a Caesar was not unknown: Diocletian tried to turn into a system of non-dynastic succession. Upon abdication in 305, the Caesars succeeded and they, in turn, appointed two colleagues for themselves.^[44]

After the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian in 305 and a series of civil wars between rival claimants to imperial power, during the years 306–313, the Tetrarchy was abandoned. Constantine the Great undertook a major reform of the bureaucracy, not by changing the structure but by rationalising the competencies of the several ministries during the years 325–330, after he defeated Licinius, emperor in the East, at the end of 324. The so-called Edict of Milan of 313, actually a fragment of a letter from Licinius to the governors of the eastern provinces, granted freedom of worship to everyone, including Christians, and ordered the restoration of confiscated church properties upon petition to the newly created vicars of dioceses. He funded the building of several churches and allowed clergy to act as arbitrators in civil suits (a measure that did not outlast him but which was restored in part much later). He transformed the town of Byzantium into his new residence, which, however, was not officially anything more than an imperial residence like Milan or Trier or Nicomedia until given a city prefect in May 359 by Constantius II; Constantinople.^[45]

Christianity in the form of the Nicene Creed became the official religion of the empire in 380, via the Edict of Thessalonica issued in the name of three emperors – Gratian, Valentinian II, and Theodosius I – with Theodosius clearly the driving force behind it. He was the last emperor of a unified empire: after his death in 395, his sons, Arcadius and Honorius divided the empire into a western and an eastern part. The seat of government in the Western Roman Empire was transferred to Ravenna in 408, but from 450 the emperors mostly resided in the capital city, Rome.^[46]

Rome, which had lost its central role in the administration of the empire, was sacked in 410 by the Visigoths led by Alaric I,^[47] but very little physical damage was done, most of which was repaired. What could not be so easily replaced were portable items such as artwork in precious metals and items for domestic use (loot). The popes embellished the city with large basilicas, such as Santa Maria Maggiore (with the collaboration of the emperors). The population of the city had fallen from 800,000 to 450–500,000 by the time the city was sacked in 455 by Genseric, king of the Vandals.^[48] The weak emperors of the fifth century could not stop the decay, leading to the deposition of Romulus Augustus on 22 August 476, which marked the end of the Western Roman Empire and, for many historians, the beginning of the Middle Ages.^[45] The decline of the city’s population was caused by the loss of grain shipments from North Africa, from 440 onward, and the unwillingness of the senatorial class to maintain donations to support a population that was too large for the resources available. Even so, strenuous efforts were made to maintain the monumental centre, the palatine, and the largest baths, which continued to function until the Gothic siege of 537. The large baths of Constantine on the Quirinale were even repaired in 443, and the extent of the damage exaggerated and dramatised.^[49] However, the city gave an appearance overall of shabbiness and decay because of the large abandoned areas due to population decline. The population declined to 500,000 by 452 and 100,000 by 500 AD (perhaps larger, though no certain figure can be known). After the Gothic siege of 537, the population dropped to 30,000 but had risen to 90,000 by the papacy of Gregory the Great.^[50] The population decline coincided with the general collapse of urban life in the West in the fifth and sixth centuries, with few exceptions. Subsidized state grain distributions to the poorer members of society continued right through the sixth century and probably prevented the population from falling further.^[51] The figure of 450,000–500,000 is based on the amount of pork, 3,629,000 lbs. distributed to poorer Romans during five winter months at the rate of five Roman lbs per person per month, enough for 145,000 persons or 1/4 or 1/3 of the total population.^[52] Grain distribution to 80,000 ticket holders at the same time suggests 400,000 (Augustus set the number at 200,000 or one-fifth of the population).

Middle Ages

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD, Rome was first under the control of Odoacer and then became part of the Ostrogothic Kingdom before returning to East Roman control after the Gothic War, which devastated the city in 546 and 550. Its population declined from more than a million in 210 AD to 500,000 in 273^[53] to 35,000 after the Gothic War (535–554),^[54] reducing the sprawling city to groups of inhabited buildings interspersed among large areas of ruins, vegetation, vineyards and market gardens.^[55] It is generally thought the population of the city until 300 AD was 1 million (estimates range from 2 million to 750,000) declining to 750–800,000 in 400 AD, 450–500,000 in 450 AD and down to 80–100,000 in 500 AD (though it may have been twice this).^[56]

The Bishop of Rome, called the Pope, was important since the early days of Christianity because of the martyrdom of both the apostles Peter and Paul there. The Bishops of Rome were also seen (and still are seen by Catholics) as the successors of Peter, who is considered the first Bishop of Rome. The city thus became of increasing importance as the centre of the Catholic Church.

After the Lombard invasion of Italy (569–572), the city remained nominally Byzantine, but in reality, the popes pursued a policy of equilibrium between the Byzantines, the Franks, and the Lombards.^[57] In 729, the Lombard king Liutprand donated the north Latium town of Sutri to the Church, starting its temporal power.^[57] In 756, Pepin the Short, after having defeated the Lombards, gave the Pope temporal jurisdiction over the Roman Duchy and the Exarchate of Ravenna, thus creating the Papal States.^[57] Since this period, three powers tried to rule the city: the pope, the nobility (together with the chiefs of militias, the judges, the Senate and the populace), and the Frankish king, as king of the Lombards, patricius, and Emperor.^[57] These three parties (theocratic, republican, and imperial) were a characteristic of Roman life during the entire Middle Ages.^[57] On Christmas night of 800, Charlemagne was crowned in Rome as emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by Pope Leo III: on that occasion, the city hosted for the first time the two powers whose struggle for control was to be a constant of the Middle Ages.^[57]

In 846, Muslim Arabs unsuccessfully stormed the city’s walls, but managed to loot St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s basilica, both outside the city wall.^[58] After the decay of Carolingian power, Rome fell prey to feudal chaos: several noble families fought against the pope, the emperor, and each other. These were the times of Theodora and her daughter Marozia, concubines and mothers of several popes, and of Crescentius, a powerful feudal lord, who fought against the Emperors Otto II and Otto III.^[59] The scandals of this period forced the papacy to reform itself: the election of the pope was reserved to the cardinals, and reform of the clergy was attempted. The driving force behind this renewal was the monk Ildebrando da Soana, who once elected pope under the name of Gregory VII became involved into the Investiture Controversy against Emperor Henry IV.^[59] Subsequently, Rome was sacked and burned by the Normans under Robert Guiscard who had entered the city in support of the Pope, then besieged in Castel Sant’Angelo.^[59]

During this period, the city was autonomously ruled by a senatore or patrizio. In the 12th century, this administration, like other European cities, evolved into the commune, a new form of social organisation controlled by the new wealthy classes.^[59] Pope Lucius II fought against the Roman commune, and the struggle was continued by his successor Pope Eugenius III: by this stage, the commune, allied with the aristocracy, was supported by Arnaldo da Brescia, a monk who was a religious and social reformer.^[60] After the pope’s death, Arnaldo was taken prisoner by Adrianus IV, which marked the end of the commune’s autonomy.^[60] Under Pope Innocent III, whose reign marked the apogee of the papacy, the commune liquidated the senate, and replaced it with a Senatore, who was subject to the pope.^[60]

In this period, the papacy played a role of secular importance in Western Europe, often acting as arbitrators between Christian monarchs and exercising additional political powers.^[61][62][63]

In 1266, Charles of Anjou, who was heading south to fight the Hohenstaufen on behalf of the pope, was appointed Senator. Charles founded the Sapienza, the university of Rome.^[60] In that period the pope died, and the cardinals, summoned in Viterbo, could not agree on his successor. This angered the people of the city, who then unroofed the building where they met and imprisoned them until they had nominated the new pope; this marked the birth of the conclave.^[60] In this period the city was also shattered by continuous fights between the aristocratic families: Annibaldi, Caetani, Colonna, Orsini, Conti, nested in their fortresses built above ancient Roman edifices, fought each other to control the papacy.^[60]

Pope Boniface VIII, born Caetani, was the last pope to fight for the church’s universal domain; he proclaimed a crusade against the Colonna family and, in 1300, called for the first Jubilee of Christianity, which brought millions of pilgrims to Rome.^[60] However, his hopes were crushed by the French king Philip the Fair, who took him prisoner and killed him in Anagni.^[60] Afterwards, a new pope faithful to the French was elected, and the papacy was briefly relocated to Avignon (1309–1377).^[64] During this period Rome was neglected, until a plebeian man, Cola di Rienzo, came to power.^[64] An idealist and a lover of ancient Rome, Cola dreamed about a rebirth of the Roman Empire: after assuming power with the title of Tribuno, his reforms were rejected by the populace.^[64] Forced to flee, Cola returned as part of the entourage of Cardinal Albornoz, who was charged with restoring the Church’s power in Italy.^[64] Back in power for a short time, Cola was soon lynched by the populace, and Albornoz took possession of the city. In 1377, Rome became the seat of the papacy again under Gregory XI.^[64] The return of the pope to Rome in that year unleashed the Western Schism (1377–1418), and for the next forty years, the city was affected by the divisions which rocked the Church.^[64]

Early modern history

In 1418, the Council of Constance settled the Western Schism, and a Roman pope, Martin V, was elected.^[64] This brought to Rome a century of internal peace, which marked the beginning of the Renaissance.^[64] The ruling popes until the first half of the 16th century, from Nicholas V, founder of the Vatican Library, to Pius II, humanist and literate, from Sixtus IV, a warrior pope, to Alexander VI, immoral and nepotist, from Julius II, soldier and patron, to Leo X, who gave his name to this period («the century of Leo X»), all devoted their energy to the greatness and the beauty of the Eternal City and to the patronage of the arts.^[64]

During those years, the centre of the Italian Renaissance moved to Rome from Florence. Majestic works, as the new Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and Ponte Sisto (the first bridge to be built across the Tiber since antiquity, although on Roman foundations) were created. To accomplish that, the Popes engaged the best artists of the time, including Michelangelo, Perugino, Raphael, Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, Botticelli, and Cosimo Rosselli.

The period was also infamous for papal corruption, with many Popes fathering children, and engaging in nepotism and simony. The corruption of the Popes and the huge expenses for their building projects led, in part, to the Reformation and, in turn, the Counter-Reformation. Under extravagant and rich popes, Rome was transformed into a centre of art, poetry, music, literature, education and culture. Rome became able to compete with other major European cities of the time in terms of wealth, grandeur, the arts, learning and architecture.

The Renaissance period changed the face of Rome dramatically, with works like the Pietà by Michelangelo and the frescoes of the Borgia Apartments. Rome reached the highest point of splendour under Pope Julius II (1503–1513) and his successors Leo X and Clement VII, both members of the Medici family.

In this twenty-year period, Rome became one of the greatest centres of art in the world. The old St. Peter’s Basilica built by Emperor Constantine the Great^[65] (which by then was in a dilapidated state) was demolished and a new one begun. The city hosted artists like Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Botticelli and Bramante, who built the temple of San Pietro in Montorio and planned a great project to renovate the Vatican. Raphael, who in Rome became one of the most famous painters of Italy, created frescoes in the Villa Farnesina, the Raphael’s Rooms, plus many other famous paintings. Michelangelo started the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and executed the famous statue of the Moses for the tomb of Julius II.

Its economy was rich, with the presence of several Tuscan bankers, including Agostino Chigi, who was a friend of Raphael and a patron of arts. Before his early death, Raphael also promoted for the first time the preservation of the ancient ruins. The War of the League of Cognac caused the first plunder of the city in more than five hundred years since the previous sack; in 1527, the Landsknechts of Emperor Charles V sacked the city, bringing an abrupt end to the golden age of the Renaissance in Rome.^[64]

Beginning with the Council of Trent in 1545, the Church began the Counter-Reformation in response to the Reformation, a large-scale questioning of the Church’s authority on spiritual matters and governmental affairs. This loss of confidence led to major shifts of power away from the Church.^[64] Under the popes from Pius IV to Sixtus V, Rome became the centre of a reformed Catholicism and saw the building of new monuments which celebrated the papacy.^[66] The popes and cardinals of the 17th and early 18th centuries continued the movement by having the city’s landscape enriched with baroque buildings.^[66]

This was another nepotistic age; the new aristocratic families (Barberini, Pamphili, Chigi, Rospigliosi, Altieri, Odescalchi) were protected by their respective popes, who built huge baroque buildings for their relatives.^[66] During the Age of Enlightenment, new ideas reached the Eternal City, where the papacy supported archaeological studies and improved the people’s welfare.^[64] But not everything went well for the Church during the Counter-Reformation. There were setbacks in the attempts to assert the Church’s power, a notable example being in 1773 when Pope Clement XIV was forced by secular powers to have the Jesuit order suppressed.^[64]

Late modern and contemporary

The rule of the Popes was interrupted by the short-lived Roman Republic (1798–1800), which was established under the influence of the French Revolution. The Papal States were restored in June 1800, but during Napoleon’s reign Rome was annexed as a Département of the French Empire: first as Département du Tibre (1808–1810) and then as Département Rome (1810–1814). After the fall of Napoleon, the Papal States were reconstituted by a decision of the Congress of Vienna of 1814.

In 1849, a second Roman Republic was proclaimed during a year of revolutions in 1848. Two of the most influential figures of the Italian unification, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, fought for the short-lived republic.

Rome then became the focus of hopes of Italian reunification after the rest of Italy was united as the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 with the temporary capital in Florence. That year Rome was declared the capital of Italy even though it was still under the Pope’s control. During the 1860s, the last vestiges of the Papal States were under French protection thanks to the foreign policy of Napoleon III. French troops were stationed in the region under Papal control. In 1870 the French troops were withdrawn due to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. Italian troops were able to capture Rome entering the city through a breach near Porta Pia. Pope Pius IX declared himself a prisoner in the Vatican. In 1871 the capital of Italy was moved from Florence to Rome.^[67] In 1870 the population of the city was 212,000, all of whom lived with the area circumscribed by the ancient city, and in 1920, the population was 660,000. A significant portion lived outside the walls in the north and across the Tiber in the Vatican area.

Soon after World War I in late 1922 Rome witnessed the rise of Italian Fascism led by Benito Mussolini, who led a march on the city. He did away with democracy by 1926, eventually declaring a new Italian Empire and allying Italy with Nazi Germany in 1938. Mussolini demolished fairly large parts of the city centre in order to build wide avenues and squares which were supposed to celebrate the fascist regime and the resurgence and glorification of classical Rome.^[68] The interwar period saw a rapid growth in the city’s population which surpassed one million inhabitants soon after 1930. During World War II, due to the art treasuries and the presence of the Vatican, Rome largely escaped the tragic destiny of other European cities. However, on 19 July 1943, the San Lorenzo district was subject to Allied bombing raids, resulting in about 3,000 fatalities and 11,000 injuries, of whom another 1,500 died.^[69] Mussolini was arrested on 25 July 1943. On the date of the Italian Armistice 8 September 1943 the city was occupied by the Germans. The Pope declared Rome an open city. It was liberated on 4 June 1944.

Rome developed greatly after the war as part of the «Italian economic miracle» of post-war reconstruction and modernisation in the 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, the years of la dolce vita («the sweet life»), Rome became a fashionable city, with popular classic films such as Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Roman Holiday and La Dolce Vita filmed in the city’s iconic Cinecittà Studios. The rising trend in population growth continued until the mid-1980s when the comune had more than 2.8 million residents. After this, the population declined slowly as people began to move to nearby suburbs.

Government

Local government

Rome constitutes a comune speciale, named «Roma Capitale»,^[70] and is the largest both in terms of land area and population among the 8,101 comuni of Italy. It is governed by a mayor and a city council. The seat of the comune is the Palazzo Senatorio on the Capitoline Hill, the historic seat of the city government. The local administration in Rome is commonly referred to as «Campidoglio», the Italian name of the hill.

Administrative and historical subdivisions

Since 1972, the city has been divided into administrative areas, called municipi (sing. municipio) (until 2001 named circoscrizioni).^[71] They were created for administrative reasons to increase decentralisation in the city. Each municipio is governed by a president and a council of twenty-five members who are elected by its residents every five years. The municipi frequently cross the boundaries of the traditional, non-administrative divisions of the city. The municipi were originally 20, then 19,^[72] and in 2013, their number was reduced to 15.^[73]

Rome is also divided into differing types of non-administrative units. The historic centre is divided into 22 rioni, all of which are located within the Aurelian Walls except Prati and Borgo. These originate from the 14 regions of Augustan Rome, which evolved in the Middle Ages into the medieval rioni.^[74] In the Renaissance, under Pope Sixtus V, they again reached fourteen, and their boundaries were finally defined under Pope Benedict XIV in 1743.

A new subdivision of the city under Napoleon was ephemeral, and there were no serious changes in the organisation of the city until 1870 when Rome became the third capital of Italy. The needs of the new capital led to an explosion both in the urbanisation and in the population within and outside the Aurelian walls. In 1874, a fifteenth rione, Esquilino, was created on the newly urbanised zone of Monti. At the beginning of the 20th century other rioni were created (the last one was Prati – the only one outside the Walls of Pope Urban VIII – in 1921). Afterwards, for the new administrative subdivisions of the city, the term «quartiere» was used. Today all the rioni are part of the first Municipio, which therefore coincides completely with the historical city (Centro Storico).

Metropolitan and regional government

Rome is the principal town of the Metropolitan City of Rome, operative since 1 January 2015. The Metropolitan City replaced the old provincia di Roma, which included the city’s metropolitan area and extends further north until Civitavecchia. The Metropolitan City of Rome is the largest by area in Italy. At 5,352 km² (2,066 sq mi), its dimensions are comparable to the region of Liguria. Moreover, the city is also the capital of the Lazio region.^[75]

National government

Rome is the national capital of Italy and is the seat of the Italian Government. The official residences of the President of the Italian Republic and the Italian Prime Minister, the seats of both houses of the Italian Parliament and that of the Italian Constitutional Court are located in the historic centre. The state ministries are spread out around the city; these include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is located in Palazzo della Farnesina near the Olympic stadium.

Geography

Location

Rome is in the Lazio region of central Italy on the Tiber (Italian: Tevere) river. The original settlement developed on hills that faced onto a ford beside the Tiber Island, the only natural ford of the river in this area. The Rome of the Kings was built on seven hills: the Aventine Hill, the Caelian Hill, the Capitoline Hill, the Esquiline Hill, the Palatine Hill, the Quirinal Hill, and the Viminal Hill. Modern Rome is also crossed by another river, the Aniene, which flows into the Tiber north of the historic centre.

Although the city centre is about 24 km (15 mi) inland from the Tyrrhenian Sea, the city territory extends to the shore, where the south-western district of Ostia is located. The altitude of the central part of Rome ranges from 13 m (43 ft) above sea level (at the base of the Pantheon) to 139 m (456 ft) above sea level (the peak of Monte Mario).^[76] The Comune of Rome covers an overall area of about 1,285 km² (496 sq mi), including many green areas.

Topography

Throughout the history of Rome, the urban limits of the city were considered to be the area within the city’s walls. Originally, these consisted of the Servian Wall, which was built twelve years after the Gaulish sack of the city in 390 BC. This contained most of the Esquiline and Caelian hills, as well as the whole of the other five. Rome outgrew the Servian Wall, but no more walls were constructed until almost 700 years later, when, in 270 AD, Emperor Aurelian began building the Aurelian Walls. These were almost 19 km (12 mi) long, and were still the walls the troops of the Kingdom of Italy had to breach to enter the city in 1870. The city’s urban area is cut in two by its ring-road, the Grande Raccordo Anulare («GRA»), finished in 1962, which circles the city centre at a distance of about 10 km (6 mi). Although when the ring was completed most parts of the inhabited area lay inside it (one of the few exceptions was the former village of Ostia, which lies along the Tyrrhenian coast), in the meantime quarters have been built which extend up to 20 km (12 mi) beyond it.^{[citation needed]}

The comune covers an area roughly three times the total area within the Raccordo and is comparable in area to the entire metropolitan cities of Milan and Naples, and to an area six times the size of the territory of these cities. It also includes considerable areas of abandoned marshland which is suitable neither for agriculture nor for urban development.^{[citation needed]}

As a consequence, the density of the comune is not that high, its territory being divided between highly urbanised areas and areas designated as parks, nature reserves, and for agricultural use.^{[citation needed]}

Climate

Rome has a Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csa),^[77] with hot, dry summers and mild, humid winters.

Its average annual temperature is above 21 °C (70 °F) during the day and 9 °C (48 °F) at night. In the coldest month, January, the average temperature is 12.6 °C (54.7 °F) during the day and 2.1 °C (35.8 °F) at night. In the warmest month, August, the average temperature is 31.7 °C (89.1 °F) during the day and 17.3 °C (63.1 °F) at night.

December, January and February are the coldest months, with a daily mean temperature of approximately 8 °C (46 °F). Temperatures during these months generally vary between 10 and 15 °C (50 and 59 °F) during the day and between 3 and 5 °C (37 and 41 °F) at night, with colder or warmer spells occurring frequently. Snowfall is rare but not unheard of, with light snow or flurries occurring on some winters, generally without accumulation, and major snowfalls on a very rare occurrence (the most recent ones were in 2018, 2012 and 1986).^[78][79][80]

The average relative humidity is 75%, varying from 72% in July to 77% in November. Sea temperatures vary from a low of 13.9 °C (57.0 °F) in February to a high of 25.0 °C (77.0 °F) in August.^[81]

Demographics

Historical population

Year	Pop.	±%
1861	194,500	—
1871	212,432	+9.2%
1881	273,952	+29.0%
1901	422,411	+54.2%
1911	518,917	+22.8%
1921	660,235	+27.2%
1931	930,926	+41.0%
1936	1,150,589	+23.6%
1951	1,651,754	+43.6%
1961	2,188,160	+32.5%
1971	2,781,993	+27.1%
1981	2,840,259	+2.1%
1991	2,775,250	−2.3%
2001	2,663,182	−4.0%
2011	2,617,175	−1.7%
2021	2,770,226	+5.8%
Source: ISTAT, 2022

In 550 BC, Rome was the second largest city in Italy, with Tarentum being the largest.^{[citation needed]} It had an area of about 285 ha (700 acres) and an estimated population of 35,000. Other sources suggest the population was just under 100,000 from 600 to 500 BC.^[83][84] When the Republic was founded in 509 BC the census recorded a population of 130,000.^[85] The republic included the city itself and the immediate surroundings. Other sources suggest a population of 150,000 in 500 BC. It surpassed 300,000 in 150 BC.^{[86][87][88][89][90]}

The size of the city at the time of the Emperor Augustus is a matter of speculation, with estimates based on grain distribution, grain imports, aqueduct capacity, city limits, population density, census reports, and assumptions about the number of unreported women, children and slaves providing a very wide range. Glenn Storey estimates 450,000 people, Whitney Oates estimates 1.2 million, Neville Morely provides a rough estimate of 800,000 and excludes earlier suggestions of 2 million.^{[91][92][93][94]} Estimates of the city’s population towards and after the end of the Roman empire also vary. A.H.M. Jones estimated the population at 650,000 in the mid-fifth century. The damage caused by the sackings may have been overestimated. The population had already started to decline from the late fourth century onward, although around the middle of the fifth century it seems that Rome continued to be the most populous city of the two parts of the Empire.^[95] According to Krautheimer it was still close to 800,000 in 400 AD; had declined to 500,000 by 452, and dwindled to perhaps 100,000 in 500 AD. After the Gothic Wars, 535–552, the population may have dwindled temporarily to 30,000. During the pontificate of Pope Gregory I (590–604), it may have reached 90,000, augmented by refugees.^[96] Lancon estimates 500,000 based on the number of ‘incisi’ enrolled as eligible to receive bread, oil and wine rations; the number fell to 120,000 in the reform of 419.^[97] Neil Christie, citing free rations for the poorest, estimated 500,000 in the mid-fifth century and still a quarter of a million at the end of the century.^[98] Novel 36 of Emperor Valentinian III records 3.629 million pounds of pork to be distributed to the needy at 5 lbs. per month for the five winter months, sufficient for 145,000 recipients. This has been used to suggest a population of just under 500,000. Supplies of grain remained steady until the seizure of the remaining provinces of North Africa in 439 by the Vandals, and may have continued to some degree afterwards for a while. The city’s population declined to less than 50,000 people in the Early Middle Ages from 700 AD onward. It continued to stagnate or shrink until the Renaissance.^[99]

When the Kingdom of Italy annexed Rome in 1870, the city had a population of about 225,000. Less than half the city within the walls was built up in 1881 when the population recorded was 275,000. This increased to 600,000 by the eve of World War I. The Fascist regime of Mussolini tried to block an excessive demographic rise of the city but failed to prevent it from reaching one million people by the early 1930s.^{[citation needed][clarification needed]} Population growth continued after the Second World War, helped by a post-war economic boom. A construction boom also created many suburbs during the 1950s and 1960s.

In mid-2010, there were 2,754,440 residents in the city proper, while some 4.2 million people lived in the greater Rome area (which can be approximately identified with its administrative metropolitan city, with a population density of about 800 inhabitants/km² stretching over more than 5,000 km² (1,900 sq mi)). Minors (children ages 18 and younger) totalled 17.00% of the population compared to pensioners who number 20.76%. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06% (minors) and 19.94% (pensioners). The average age of a Roman resident is 43 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Rome grew by 6.54%, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56%.^[100] The current^[when?] birth rate of Rome is 9.10 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births.^{[citation needed]}

The urban area of Rome extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of around 3.9 million.^[101] Between 3.2 and 4.2 million people live in the Rome metropolitan area.^{[102][103][104][105][106]}

Origin groups

According to the latest statistics conducted by ISTAT,^[107] approximately 9.5% of the population consists of non-Italians. About half of the immigrant population consists of those of various other European origins (chiefly Romanian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Albanian) numbering a combined total of 131,118 or 4.7% of the population. The remaining 4.8% are those with non-European origins, chiefly Filipinos (26,933), Bangladeshis (12,154), and Chinese (10,283).

The Esquilino rione, off Termini Railway Station, has evolved into a largely immigrant neighbourhood. It is perceived as Rome’s Chinatown. Immigrants from more than a hundred different countries reside there. A commercial district, Esquilino contains restaurants featuring many kinds of international cuisine. There are wholesale clothes shops. Of the 1,300 or so commercial premises operating in the district 800 are Chinese-owned; around 300 are run by immigrants from other countries around the world; 200 are owned by Italians.^[108]

Notable people

Religion

Much like the rest of Italy, Rome is predominantly Christian, and the city has been an important centre of religion and pilgrimage for centuries, the base of the ancient Roman religion with the pontifex maximus and later the seat of the Vatican and the pope. Before the arrival of the Christians in Rome, the Religio Romana (literally, the «Roman Religion») was the major religion of the city in classical antiquity. The first gods held sacred by the Romans were Jupiter, the Most High, and Mars, the god of war, and father of Rome’s twin founders, Romulus and Remus, according to tradition. Other deities such as Vesta and Minerva were honoured. Rome was also the base of several mystery cults, such as Mithraism. Later, after St Peter and St Paul were martyred in the city, and the first Christians began to arrive, Rome became Christian, and the Old St. Peter’s Basilica was constructed in 313 AD. Despite some interruptions (such as the Avignon papacy), Rome has for centuries been the home of the Roman Catholic Church and the Bishop of Rome, otherwise known as the Pope.

Despite the fact that Rome is home to the Vatican City and St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome’s cathedral is the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran, in the south-east of the city centre. There are around 900 churches in Rome in total. Aside from the cathedral itself, some others of note include the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, the Basilica di San Clemente, San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane and the Church of the Gesù. There are also the ancient Catacombs of Rome underneath the city. Numerous highly important religious educational institutions are also in Rome, such as the Pontifical Lateran University, Pontifical Biblical Institute, Pontifical Gregorian University, and Pontifical Oriental Institute.

Since the end of the Roman Republic, Rome is also the centre of an important Jewish community,^[109] which was once based in Trastevere, and later in the Roman Ghetto. There lies also the major synagogue in Rome, the Tempio Maggiore.

Vatican City

The territory of Vatican City is part of the Mons Vaticanus (Vatican Hill), and of the adjacent former Vatican Fields, where St. Peter’s Basilica, the Apostolic Palace, the Sistine Chapel, and museums were built, along with various other buildings. The area was part of the Roman rione of Borgo until 1929. Being separated from the city on the west bank of the Tiber, the area was a suburb that was protected by being included within the walls of Leo IV, later expanded by the current fortification walls of Paul III, Pius IV, and Urban VIII.

When the Lateran Treaty of 1929 that created the Vatican state was being prepared, the boundaries of the proposed territory were influenced by the fact that much of it was all but enclosed by this loop. For some parts of the border, there was no wall, but the line of certain buildings supplied part of the boundary, and for a small part a new wall was constructed.

The territory includes Saint Peter’s Square, separated from the territory of Italy only by a white line along with the limit of the square, where it borders Piazza Pio XII. St. Peter’s Square is reached through the Via della Conciliazione, which runs from the Tiber to St. Peter’s. This grand approach was designed by architects Piacentini and Spaccarelli, on the instructions of Benito Mussolini and in accordance with the church, after the conclusion of the Lateran Treaty. According to the Treaty, certain properties of the Holy See located in Italian territory, most notably the Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo and the major basilicas, enjoy extraterritorial status similar to that of foreign embassies.

Pilgrimage

Rome has been a major Christian pilgrimage site since the Middle Ages. People from all over the Christian world visit Vatican City, within the city of Rome, the seat of the papacy. The city became a major pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages. Apart from brief periods as an independent city during the Middle Ages, Rome kept its status as Papal capital and holy city for centuries, even when the Papacy briefly relocated to Avignon (1309–1377). Catholics believe that the Vatican is the last resting place of St. Peter.

Pilgrimages to Rome can involve visits to many sites, both within Vatican City and in Italian territory. A popular stopping point is the Pilate’s stairs: these are, according to the Christian tradition, the steps that led up to the praetorium of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, which Jesus Christ stood on during his Passion on his way to trial.^[110] The stairs were, reputedly, brought to Rome by Helena of Constantinople in the fourth century. For centuries, the Scala Santa has attracted Christian pilgrims who wished to honour the Passion of Jesus. Other objects of pilgrimage include several catacombs built in imperial times, in which Christians prayed, buried their dead and performed worship during periods of persecution, and various national churches (among them San Luigi dei francesi and Santa Maria dell’Anima), or churches associated with individual religious orders, such as the Jesuit Churches of Jesus and Sant’Ignazio.

Traditionally, pilgrims in Rome (as well as devout Romans) visit the seven pilgrim churches (Italian: Le sette chiese) in 24 hours. This custom, mandatory for each pilgrim in the Middle Ages, was codified in the 16th century by Saint Philip Neri. The seven churches are the four major basilicas (St Peter in the Vatican, St Paul outside the Walls, St John in Lateran and Santa Maria Maggiore), while the other three are San Lorenzo fuori le mura (an Early Christian basilica), Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (a church founded by Helena, the mother of Constantine, which hosts fragments of wood attributed to the holy cross) and San Sebastiano fuori le mura (which lies on the Appian Way and is built above the Catacombs of San Sebastiano).

Cityscape

Architecture

Rome’s architecture over the centuries has greatly developed, especially from the Classical and Imperial Roman styles to modern fascist architecture. Rome was for a period one of the world’s main epicentres of classical architecture, developing new forms such as the arch, the dome and the vault.^[112] The Romanesque style in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries was also widely used in Roman architecture, and later the city became one of the main centres of Renaissance, Baroque and neoclassical architecture.^[112]

Ancient Rome

One of the symbols of Rome is the Colosseum (70–80 AD), the largest amphitheatre ever built in the Roman Empire. Originally capable of seating 60,000 spectators, it was used for gladiatorial combat. Important monuments and sites of ancient Rome include the Roman Forum, the Domus Aurea, the Pantheon, Trajan’s Column, Trajan’s Market, the Catacombs, the Circus Maximus, the Baths of Caracalla, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Mausoleum of Augustus, the Ara Pacis, the Arch of Constantine, the Pyramid of Cestius, and the Bocca della Verità.

Medieval

The medieval popular quarters of the city, situated mainly around the Capitol, were largely demolished between the end of the 19th century and the fascist period, but many notable buildings still remain. Basilicas dating from Christian antiquity include Saint Mary Major and Saint Paul outside the Walls (the latter largely rebuilt in the 19th century), both housing precious fourth century AD mosaics. Notable later medieval mosaics and frescoes can be also found in the churches of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santi Quattro Coronati, and Santa Prassede. Secular buildings include a number of towers, the largest being the Torre delle Milizie and the Torre dei Conti, both next to the Roman Forum, and the huge outdoor stairway leading up to the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

Renaissance and Baroque

Rome was a major world centre of the Renaissance, second only to Florence, and was profoundly affected by the movement. Among others, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture in Rome is the Piazza del Campidoglio by Michelangelo. During this period, the great aristocratic families of Rome used to build opulent dwellings as the Palazzo del Quirinale (now seat of the President of the Italian Republic), the Palazzo Venezia, the Palazzo Farnese, the Palazzo Barberini, the Palazzo Chigi (now seat of the Italian Prime Minister), the Palazzo Spada, the Palazzo della Cancelleria, and the Villa Farnesina.

Many of the famous city’s squares – some huge, majestic and often adorned with obelisks, some small and picturesque – took their present shape during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The principal ones are Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, Campo de’ Fiori, Piazza Venezia, Piazza Farnese, Piazza della Rotonda and Piazza della Minerva. One of the most emblematic examples of Baroque art is the Trevi Fountain by Nicola Salvi. Other notable 17th-century Baroque palaces are the Palazzo Madama, now the seat of the Italian Senate, and the Palazzo Montecitorio, now the seat of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy.

Neoclassicism

In 1870, Rome became the capital city of the new Kingdom of Italy. During this time, neoclassicism, a building style influenced by the architecture of antiquity, became the predominant influence in Roman architecture. During this period, many great palaces in neoclassical styles were built to host ministries, embassies, and other government agencies. One of the best-known symbols of Roman neoclassicism is the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II or «Altar of the Fatherland», where the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, who represents the 650,000 Italian soldiers who died in World War I, is located.

Fascist architecture

The Fascist regime that ruled in Italy between 1922 and 1943 had its showcase in Rome. Mussolini ordered the construction of new roads and piazzas, resulting in the destruction of older roads, houses, churches and palaces erected during papal rule. The main activities during his government were: the «isolation» of the Capitoline Hill; Via dei Monti, later renamed Via del’Impero, and finally Via dei Fori Imperiali; Via del Mare, later renamed Via del Teatro di Marcello; the «isolation» of the Mausoleum of Augustus, with the erection of Piazza Augusto Imperatore; and Via della Conciliazione.

Architecturally, Italian Fascism favoured the most modern movements, such as Rationalism. Parallel to this, in the 1920s another style emerged, named «Stile Novecento», characterised by its links with ancient Roman architecture. Two important complexes in the latter style are the Foro Mussolini, now Foro Italico, by Enrico Del Debbio, and the Città universitaria («University city»), by Marcello Piacentini, also author of the controversial destruction of part of the Borgo rione to open Via della Conciliazione.

The most important Fascist site in Rome is the EUR district, designed in 1938 by Piacentini. This new quarter emerged as a compromise between Rationalist and Novecento architects, the former being led by Giuseppe Pagano. The EUR was originally conceived for the 1942 world exhibition, and was called «E.42» («Esposizione 42»). The most representative buildings of EUR are the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana (1938–1943), and the Palazzo dei Congressi, examples of the Rationalist style. The world exhibition never took place, because Italy entered the Second World War in 1940, and the buildings were partly destroyed in 1943 in fighting between the Italian and German armies and later abandoned. The quarter was restored in the 1950s when the Roman authorities found that they already had the seed of an off-centre business district of the type that other capitals were still planning (London Docklands and La Défense in Paris). Also, the Palazzo della Farnesina, the current seat of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was designed in 1935 in pure Fascist style.

Parks and gardens

Public parks and nature reserves cover a large area in Rome, and the city has one of the largest areas of green space among European capitals.^[113] The most notable part of this green space is represented by the large number of villas and landscaped gardens created by the Italian aristocracy. While most of the parks surrounding the villas were destroyed during the building boom of the late 19th century, some of them remain. The most notable of these are the Villa Borghese, Villa Ada, and Villa Doria Pamphili. Villa Doria Pamphili is west of the Gianicolo hill, comprising some 1.8 km² (0.7 sq mi). The Villa Sciarra is on the hill, with playgrounds for children and shaded walking areas. In the nearby area of Trastevere, the Orto Botanico (Botanical Garden) is a cool and shady green space. The old Roman hippodrome (Circus Maximus) is another large green space: it has few trees but is overlooked by the Palatine and the Rose Garden (‘roseto comunale’). Nearby is the lush Villa Celimontana, close to the gardens surrounding the Baths of Caracalla. The Villa Borghese garden is the best known large green space in Rome, with famous art galleries among its shaded walks. Overlooking Piazza del Popolo and the Spanish Steps are the gardens of Pincio and Villa Medici. There is also a notable pine wood at Castelfusano, near Ostia. Rome also has a number of regional parks of much more recent origin, including the Pineto Regional Park and the Appian Way Regional Park. There are also nature reserves at Marcigliana and at Tenuta di Castelporziano.

Fountains and aqueducts

Rome is a city known for its numerous fountains, built-in all different styles, from Classical and Medieval, to Baroque and Neoclassical. The city has had fountains for more than two thousand years, and they have provided drinking water and decorated the piazzas of Rome. During the Roman Empire, in 98 AD, according to Sextus Julius Frontinus, the Roman consul who was named curator aquarum or guardian of the water of the city, Rome had nine aqueducts which fed 39 monumental fountains and 591 public basins, not counting the water supplied to the Imperial household, baths, and owners of private villas. Each of the major fountains was connected to two different aqueducts, in case one was shut down for service.^[114]

During the 17th and 18th century, the Roman popes reconstructed other degraded Roman aqueducts and built new display fountains to mark their termini, launching the golden age of the Roman fountain. The fountains of Rome, like the paintings of Rubens, were expressions of the new style of Baroque art. In these fountains, sculpture became the principal element, and the water was used simply to animate and decorate the sculptures. They, like baroque gardens, were «a visual representation of confidence and power».^[115]

Statues

Rome is well known for its statues but, in particular, the talking statues of Rome. These are usually ancient statues which have become popular soapboxes for political and social discussion, and places for people to (often satirically) voice their opinions. There are two main talking statues: the Pasquino and the Marforio, yet there are four other noted ones: il Babuino, Madama Lucrezia, il Facchino and Abbot Luigi. Most of these statues are ancient Roman or classical, and most of them also depict mythical gods, ancient people or legendary figures; il Pasquino represents Menelaus, Abbot Luigi is an unknown Roman magistrate, il Babuino is supposed to be Silenus, Marforio represents Oceanus, Madama Lucrezia is a bust of Isis, and il Facchino is the only non-Roman statue, created in 1580, and not representing anyone in particular. They are often, due to their status, covered with placards or graffiti expressing political ideas and points of view. Other statues in the city, which are not related to the talking statues, include those of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, or several monuments scattered across the city, such as that to Giordano Bruno in the Campo de’Fiori.

Obelisks and columns

The city hosts eight ancient Egyptian and five ancient Roman obelisks, together with a number of more modern obelisks; there was also formerly (until 2005) an ancient Ethiopian obelisk in Rome.^[116] The city contains some of obelisks in piazzas, such as in Piazza Navona, St Peter’s Square, Piazza Montecitorio, and Piazza del Popolo, and others in villas, thermae parks and gardens, such as in Villa Celimontana, the Baths of Diocletian, and the Pincian Hill. Moreover, the centre of Rome hosts also Trajan’s and Antonine Column, two ancient Roman columns with spiral relief. The Column of Marcus Aurelius is located in Piazza Colonna and it was built around 180 AD by Commodus in memory of his parents. The Column of Marcus Aurelius was inspired by Trajan’s Column at Trajan’s Forum, which is part of the Imperial Fora.^[117]

Bridges

The city of Rome contains numerous famous bridges which cross the Tiber. The only bridge to remain unaltered until today from the classical age is Ponte dei Quattro Capi, which connects the Isola Tiberina with the left bank. The other surviving – albeit modified – ancient Roman bridges crossing the Tiber are Ponte Cestio, Ponte Sant’Angelo and Ponte Milvio. Considering Ponte Nomentano, also built during ancient Rome, which crosses the Aniene, currently there are five ancient Roman bridges still remaining in the city.^[118] Other noteworthy bridges are Ponte Sisto, the first bridge built in the Renaissance above Roman foundations; Ponte Rotto, actually the only remaining arch of the ancient Pons Aemilius, collapsed during the flood of 1598 and demolished at the end of the 19th century; and Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, a modern bridge connecting Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Borgo. Most of the city’s public bridges were built in Classical or Renaissance style, but also in Baroque, Neoclassical and Modern styles. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the finest ancient bridge remaining in Rome is the Ponte Sant’Angelo, which was completed in 135 AD, and was decorated with ten statues of the angels, designed by Bernini in 1688.^[119]

Catacombs

Rome has an extensive amount of ancient catacombs, or underground burial places under or near the city, of which there are at least forty, some discovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, they include pagan and Jewish burials, either in separate catacombs or mixed together. The first large-scale catacombs were excavated from the 2nd century onwards. Originally they were carved through tuff, a soft volcanic rock, outside the boundaries of the city, because Roman law forbade burial places within city limits. Currently, maintenance of the catacombs is in the hands of the Papacy which has invested in the Salesians of Don Bosco the supervision of the Catacombs of St. Callixtus on the outskirts of Rome.

Economy

As the capital of Italy, Rome hosts all the principal institutions of the nation, including the Presidency of the Republic, the government (and its single Ministeri), the Parliament, the main judicial Courts, and the diplomatic representatives of all the countries for the states of Italy and Vatican City. Many international institutions are located in Rome, notably cultural and scientific ones, such as the American Institute, the British School, the French Academy, the Scandinavian Institutes, and the German Archaeological Institute. There are also specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rome also hosts major international and worldwide political and cultural organisations, such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), World Food Programme (WFP), the NATO Defence College, and the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM).

According to the GaWC study of world cities, Rome is a «Beta +» city.^[120] The city was ranked in 2014 as 32nd in the Global Cities Index, the highest in Italy.^[121] With a 2005 GDP of €94.376 billion (US$121.5 billion),^{[122][needs update]} the city produces 6.7% of the national GDP (more than any other single city in Italy), and its unemployment rate, lowered from 11.1% to 6.5% between 2001 and 2005, is now one of the lowest rates of all the European Union capital cities.^[122] Rome’s economy grows at around 4.4% annually and continues to grow at a higher rate in comparison to any other city in the rest of the country.^[122] This means that were Rome a country, it would be the world’s 52nd richest country by GDP, near to the size to that of Egypt. Rome also had a 2003 GDP per capita of €29,153 (US$37,412), which was second in Italy (after Milan), and is more than 134.1% of the EU average GDP per capita.^{[123][needs update]} Rome, on the whole, has the highest total earnings in Italy, reaching €47,076,890,463 in 2008,^{[124][needs update]} yet, in terms of average workers’ incomes, the city places itself 9th in Italy, with €24,509.^[124] On a global level, Rome’s workers receive the 30th highest wages in 2009, coming three places higher than in 2008, in which the city ranked 33rd.^{[125][needs update]} The Rome area had a GDP amounting to $167.8 billion, and $38,765 per capita.^[126]

Although the economy of Rome is characterised by the absence of heavy industry, and it is largely dominated by services, high-technology companies (IT, aerospace, defence, telecommunications), research, construction and commercial activities (especially banking), and the huge development of tourism are very dynamic and extremely important to its economy. Rome’s international airport, Fiumicino, is the largest in Italy, and the city hosts the head offices of the vast majority of the major Italian companies, as well as the headquarters of three of the world’s 100 largest companies: Enel, Eni, and Telecom Italia.^[127]

Universities, national radio and television and the movie industry in Rome are also important parts of the economy: Rome is also the hub of the Italian film industry, thanks to the Cinecittà studios, working since the 1930s. The city is also a centre for banking and insurance as well as electronics, energy, transport, and aerospace industries. Numerous international companies and agencies headquarters, government ministries, conference centres, sports venues, and museums are located in Rome’s principal business districts: the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR); the Torrino (further south from the EUR); the Magliana; the Parco de’ Medici-Laurentina and the so-called Tiburtina-valley along the ancient Via Tiburtina.

Education

Rome is a nationwide and major international centre for higher education, containing numerous academies, colleges and universities. It boasts a large variety of academies and colleges, and has always been a major worldwide intellectual and educational centre, especially during Ancient Rome and the Renaissance, along with Florence.^[128] According to the City Brands Index, Rome is considered the world’s second most historically, educationally and culturally interesting and beautiful city.^[129]

Rome has many universities and colleges. Its first university, La Sapienza (founded in 1303), is one of the largest in the world, with more than 140,000 students attending; in 2005 it ranked as Europe’s 33rd best university^[130] and in 2013 the Sapienza University of Rome ranked as the 62nd in the world and the top in Italy in its World University Rankings.^[131] and has been ranked among Europe’s 50 and the world’s 150 best colleges.^[132] In order to decrease the overcrowding of La Sapienza, two new public universities were founded during the last decades: Tor Vergata in 1982, and Roma Tre in 1992. Rome hosts also the LUISS School of Government,^[133] Italy’s most important graduate university in the areas of international affairs and European studies as well as LUISS Business School, Italy’s most important business school. Rome ISIA was founded in 1973 by Giulio Carlo Argan and is Italy’s oldest institution in the field of industrial design.

Rome contains many pontifical universities and other institutes, including the British School at Rome, the French School in Rome, the Pontifical Gregorian University (the oldest Jesuit university in the world, founded in 1551), Istituto Europeo di Design, the Scuola Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Link Campus of Malta, and the Università Campus Bio-Medico. Rome is also the location of two American Universities; The American University of Rome^[134] and John Cabot University as well as St. John’s University branch campus, John Felice Rome Center, a campus of Loyola University Chicago and Temple University Rome, a campus of Temple University.^[135] The Roman Colleges are several seminaries for students from foreign countries studying for the priesthood at the Pontifical Universities.^[136] Examples include the Venerable English College, the Pontifical North American College, the Scots College, and the Pontifical Croatian College of St. Jerome.

Rome’s major libraries include: the Biblioteca Angelica, opened in 1604, making it Italy’s first public library; the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, established in 1565; the Biblioteca Casanatense, opened in 1701; the National Central Library, one of the two national libraries in Italy, which contains 4,126,002 volumes; The Biblioteca del Ministero degli Affari Esteri, specialised in diplomacy, foreign affairs and modern history; the Biblioteca dell’Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana; the Biblioteca Don Bosco, one of the largest and most modern of all Salesian libraries; the Biblioteca e Museo teatrale del Burcardo, a museum-library specialised in history of drama and theatre; the Biblioteca della Società Geografica Italiana, which is based in the Villa Celimontana and is the most important geographical library in Italy, and one of Europe’s most important;^[137] and the Vatican Library, one of the oldest and most important libraries in the world, which was formally established in 1475, though in fact much older and has 75,000 codices, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula. There are also many specialist libraries attached to various foreign cultural institutes in Rome, among them that of the American Academy in Rome, the French Academy in Rome and the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute of Art History, a German library, often noted for excellence in the arts and sciences.^[138]

Culture

Entertainment and performing arts

Rome is an important centre for music, and it has an intense musical scene, including several prestigious music conservatories and theatres. It hosts the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (founded in 1585), for which new concert halls have been built in the new Parco della Musica, one of the largest musical venues in the world. Rome also has an opera house, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, as well as several minor musical institutions. The city also played host to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1991 and the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2004.

Rome has also had a major impact on music history. The Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music, which were active in the city during the 16th and 17th centuries, therefore spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. The term also refers to the music they produced. Many of the composers had a direct connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches; stylistically they are often contrasted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent movement which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman School is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, whose name has been associated for four hundred years with smooth, clear, polyphonic perfection. However, there were other composers working in Rome, and in a variety of styles and forms.

Between 1960 and 1970 Rome was considered to be as a «new Hollywood» because of the many actors and directors who worked there; Via Vittorio Veneto had transformed into a glamour place where you could meet famous people.^[139]

Tourism

Rome today is one of the most important tourist destinations of the world, due to the incalculable immensity of its archaeological and artistic treasures, as well as for the charm of its unique traditions, the beauty of its panoramic views, and the majesty of its magnificent «villas» (parks). Among the most significant resources are the many museums – Musei Capitolini, the Vatican Museums and the Galleria Borghese and others dedicated to modern and contemporary art – aqueducts, fountains, churches, palaces, historical buildings, the monuments and ruins of the Roman Forum, and the Catacombs. Rome is the third most visited city in the EU, after London and Paris, and receives an average of 7–10 million tourists a year, which sometimes doubles on holy years. The Colosseum (4 million tourists) and the Vatican Museums (4.2 million tourists) are the 39th and 37th (respectively) most visited places in the world, according to a recent study.^[140]

Rome is a major archaeological hub, and one of the world’s main centres of archaeological research. There are numerous cultural and research institutes located in the city, such as the American Academy in Rome,^[141] and The Swedish Institute at Rome.^[142] Rome contains numerous ancient sites, including the Forum Romanum, Trajan’s Market, Trajan’s Forum,^[143] the Colosseum, and the Pantheon, to name but a few. The Colosseum, arguably one of Rome’s most iconic archaeological sites, is regarded as a wonder of the world.^[144][145]

Rome contains a vast and impressive collection of art, sculpture, fountains, mosaics, frescos, and paintings, from all different periods. Rome first became a major artistic centre during ancient Rome, with forms of important Roman art such as architecture, painting, sculpture and mosaic work. Metal-work, coin die and gem engraving, ivory carvings, figurine glass, pottery, and book illustrations are considered to be ‘minor’ forms of Roman artwork.^[146] Rome later became a major centre of Renaissance art, since the popes spent vast sums of money for the constructions of grandiose basilicas, palaces, piazzas and public buildings in general. Rome became one of Europe’s major centres of Renaissance artwork, second only to Florence, and able to compare to other major cities and cultural centres, such as Paris and Venice. The city was affected greatly by the baroque, and Rome became the home of numerous artists and architects, such as Bernini, Caravaggio, Carracci, Borromini and Cortona.^[147] In the late 18th century and early 19th century, the city was one of the centres of the Grand Tour,^[148] when wealthy, young English and other European aristocrats visited the city to learn about ancient Roman culture, art, philosophy, and architecture. Rome hosted a great number of neoclassical and rococo artists, such as Pannini and Bernardo Bellotto. Today, the city is a major artistic centre, with numerous art institutes^[149] and museums.

Rome has a growing stock of contemporary and modern art and architecture. The National Gallery of Modern Art has works by Balla, Morandi, Pirandello, Carrà, De Chirico, De Pisis, Guttuso, Fontana, Burri, Mastroianni, Turcato, Kandisky, and Cézanne on permanent exhibition. 2010 saw the opening of Rome’s newest arts foundation, a contemporary art and architecture gallery designed by acclaimed Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. Known as MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts it restores a dilapidated area with striking modern architecture. Maxxi^[151] features a campus dedicated to culture, experimental research laboratories, international exchange and study and research. It is one of Rome’s most ambitious modern architecture projects alongside Renzo Piano’s Auditorium Parco della Musica^[152] and Massimiliano Fuksas’ Rome Convention Center, Centro Congressi Italia EUR, in the EUR district, due to open in 2016.^[153] The convention centre features a huge translucent container inside which is suspended a steel and teflon structure resembling a cloud and which contains meeting rooms and an auditorium with two piazzas open to the neighbourhood on either side.

Fashion

Rome is also widely recognised as a world fashion capital. Although not as important as Milan, Rome is the fourth most important centre for fashion in the world, according to the 2009 Global Language Monitor after Milan, New York, and Paris, and beating London.^[154]

Major luxury fashion houses and jewellery chains, such as Valentino, Bulgari, Fendi,^[155] Laura Biagiotti, Brioni, and Renato Balestra, are headquartered or were founded in the city. Also, other major labels, such as Gucci, Chanel, Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Armani, and Versace have luxury boutiques in Rome, primarily along its prestigious and upscale Via dei Condotti.

Cuisine

Rome’s cuisine has evolved through centuries and periods of social, cultural, and political changes. Rome became a major gastronomical centre during the ancient age. Ancient Roman cuisine was highly influenced by Ancient Greek culture, and after, the empire’s enormous expansion exposed Romans to many new, provincial culinary habits and cooking techniques.^[156]

Later, during the Renaissance, Rome became well known as a centre of high-cuisine, since some of the best chefs of the time worked for the popes. An example of this was Bartolomeo Scappi, who was a chef working for Pius IV in the Vatican kitchen, and he acquired fame in 1570 when his cookbook Opera dell’arte del cucinare was published. In the book he lists approximately 1000 recipes of the Renaissance cuisine and describes cooking techniques and tools, giving the first known picture of a fork.^[157]

The Testaccio, Rome’s trade and slaughterhouse area, was often known as the «belly» or «slaughterhouse» of Rome, and was inhabited by butchers, or vaccinari.^[158] The most common or ancient Roman cuisine included the «fifth quarter».^[158] The old-fashioned coda alla vaccinara (oxtail cooked in the way of butchers)^[158] is still one of the city’s most popular meals and is part of most of Rome’s restaurants’ menus. Lamb is also a very popular part of Roman cuisine, and is often roasted with spices and herbs.^[158]

In the modern age, the city developed its own peculiar cuisine, based on products of the nearby Campagna, as lamb and vegetables (globe artichokes are common).^[159] In parallel, Roman Jews – present in the city since the 1st century BC – developed their own cuisine, the cucina giudaico-romanesca.

Examples of Roman dishes include saltimbocca alla romana – a veal cutlet, Roman-style, topped with raw ham and sage and simmered with white wine and butter; carciofi alla romana – artichokes Roman-style, outer leaves removed, stuffed with mint, garlic, breadcrumbs and braised; carciofi alla giudia – artichokes fried in olive oil, typical of Roman Jewish cooking, outer leaves removed, stuffed with mint, garlic, breadcrumbs and braised; spaghetti alla carbonara – spaghetti with bacon, eggs and pecorino; and gnocchi di semolino alla romana – semolina dumpling, Roman-style.^[160]

Cinema

Rome hosts the Cinecittà Studios,^[162] the largest film and television production facility in continental Europe and the centre of the Italian cinema, where many of today’s biggest box office hits are filmed. The 99-acre (40 ha) studio complex is 9.0 km (5.6 mi) from the centre of Rome and is part of one of the biggest production communities in the world, second only to Hollywood, with well over 5,000 professionals – from period costume makers to visual effects specialists. More than 3,000 productions have been made on its lot, from recent features like The Passion of the Christ, Gangs of New York, HBO’s Rome, The Life Aquatic and Dino De Laurentiis’ Decameron, to such cinema classics as Ben-Hur, Cleopatra, and the films of Federico Fellini.^{[citation needed]}

Founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini, the studios were bombed by the Western Allies during the Second World War. In the 1950s, Cinecittà was the filming location for several large American film productions, and subsequently became the studio most closely associated with Federico Fellini. Today, Cinecittà is the only studio in the world with pre-production, production, and full post-production facilities on one lot, allowing directors and producers to walk in with their script and «walkout» with a completed film.^{[citation needed]}

Language

Although associated today only with Latin, ancient Rome was in fact multilingual. In the highest antiquity, Sabine tribes shared the area of what is today Rome with Latin tribes. The Sabine language was one of the Italic group of ancient Italian languages, along with Etruscan, which would have been the main language of the last three kings who ruled the city till the founding of the Republic in 509 BC. Urganilla, or Plautia Urgulanilla, wife of Emperor Claudius, is thought to have been a speaker of Etruscan many centuries after this date, according to Suetonius’ entry on Claudius. However Latin, in various evolving forms, was the main language of classical Rome, but as the city had immigrants, slaves, residents, ambassadors from many parts of the world it was also multilingual. Many educated Romans also spoke Greek, and there was a large Greek, Syriac and Jewish population in parts of Rome from well before the Empire.

Latin evolved during the Middle Ages into a new language, the «volgare«. The latter emerged as the confluence of various regional dialects, among which the Tuscan dialect predominated, but the population of Rome also developed its own dialect, the Romanesco. The Romanesco spoken during the Middle Ages was more like a southern Italian dialect, very close to the Neapolitan language in Campania. The influence of the Florentine culture during the renaissance, and above all, the immigration to Rome of many Florentines following the two Medici Popes (Leo X and Clement VII), caused a major shift in the dialect, which began to resemble more the Tuscan varieties. This remained largely confined to Rome until the 19th century, but then expanded to other zones of Lazio (Civitavecchia, Latina and others), from the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the rising population of Rome and to improving transportation systems. As a consequence of education and media like radio and television, Romanesco became more similar to standard Italian but does not represent standard Italian. Dialectal literature in the traditional form of Romanesco includes the works of such authors as Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, Trilussa and Cesare Pascarella. It is worth remembering though that Romanesco was a «lingua vernacola» (vernacular language), meaning that for centuries, it did not have a written form but it was only spoken by the population.

Contemporary Romanesco is mainly represented by popular actors and actresses, such as Alberto Sordi, Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Carlo Verdone, Enrico Montesano, Gigi Proietti and Nino Manfredi.

Rome’s historic contribution to language in a worldwide sense is much more extensive, however. Through the process of Romanization, the peoples of Italy, Gallia, the Iberian Peninsula and Dacia developed languages which derive directly from Latin and were adopted in large areas of the world, all through cultural influence, colonisation and migration. Moreover, also modern English, because of the Norman Conquest, borrowed a large percentage of its vocabulary from the Latin language. The Roman or Latin alphabet is the most widely used writing system in the world used by the greatest number of languages.^[164]

Rome has long hosted artistic communities, foreign resident communities and many foreign religious students or pilgrims and so has always been a multilingual city. Today because of mass tourism, many languages are used in servicing tourism, especially English which is widely known in tourist areas, and the city hosts large numbers of immigrants and so has many multilingual immigrant areas.

Sports

Association football is the most popular sport in Rome, as in the rest of the country.
The city hosted the final games of the 1934 and 1990 FIFA World Cup.
The latter took place in the Stadio Olimpico, which is also the shared home stadium for local Serie A clubs S.S. Lazio, founded in 1900, and A.S. Roma, founded in 1927, whose rivalry in the Derby della Capitale has become a staple of Roman sports culture.^[166]
Footballers who play for these teams and are also born in the city tend to become especially popular, as has been the case with players such as Francesco Totti and Daniele De Rossi (both for A.S. Roma), and Alessandro Nesta (for S.S. Lazio).

Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics, with great success, using many ancient sites such as the Villa Borghese and the Thermae of Caracalla as venues. For the Olympic Games many new facilities were built, notably the new large Olympic Stadium (which was then enlarged and renewed to host several matches and the final of the 1990 FIFA World Cup), the Stadio Flaminio, the Villaggio Olimpico (Olympic Village, created to host the athletes and redeveloped after the games as a residential district), ecc. Rome made a bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics but it was withdrawn before the deadline for applicant files.^[167][168]

Further, Rome hosted the 1991 EuroBasket and is home to the internationally recognised basketball team Virtus Roma. Rugby union is gaining wider acceptance. Until 2011 the Stadio Flaminio was the home stadium for the Italy national rugby union team, which has been playing in the Six Nations Championship since 2000. The team now plays home games at the Stadio Olimpico because the Stadio Flaminio needs works of renovation in order to improve both its capacity and safety. Rome is home to local rugby union teams such as Rugby Roma (founded in 1930 and winner of five Italian championships, the latter in 1999–2000), Unione Rugby Capitolina and S.S. Lazio 1927 (rugby union branch of the multisport club S.S. Lazio).

Every May, Rome hosts the ATP Masters Series tennis tournament on the clay courts of the Foro Italico. Cycling was popular in the post-World War II period, although its popularity has faded. Rome has hosted the final portion of the Giro d’Italia three times, in 1911, 1950, and 2009. Rome is also home to other sports teams, including volleyball (M. Roma Volley), handball or waterpolo.

Transport

Rome is at the centre of the radial network of roads that roughly follow the lines of the ancient Roman roads which began at the Capitoline Hill and connected Rome with its empire. Today Rome is circled, at a distance of about 10 km (6 mi) from the Capitol, by the ring-road (the Grande Raccordo Anulare or GRA).

Due to its location in the centre of the Italian peninsula, Rome is the principal railway node for central Italy. Rome’s main railway station, Termini, is one of the largest railway stations in Europe and the most heavily used in Italy, with around 400 thousand travellers passing through every day. The second-largest station in the city, Roma Tiburtina, has been redeveloped as a high-speed rail terminus.^[169] As well as frequent high-speed day trains to all major Italian cities, Rome is linked nightly by ‘boat train’ sleeper services to Sicily, and internationally by overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna by ÖBB Austrian railways.

Rome is served by three airports. The intercontinental Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, Italy’s chief airport is located within the nearby Fiumicino, south-west of Rome. The older Rome Ciampino Airport is a joint civilian and military airport. It is commonly referred to as «Ciampino Airport», as it is located beside Ciampino, south-east of Rome. A third airport, the Roma-Urbe Airport, is a small, low-traffic airport located about 6 km (4 mi) north of the city centre, which handles most helicopter and private flights. The main airport system of the city (composed of Fiumicino and Ciampino), with 32.8 million passengers transported in 2022, is the second airport system in Italy after that of Milan with 42.2 million.^[170]

Although the city has its own quarter on the Mediterranean Sea (Lido di Ostia), this has only a marina and a small channel-harbour for fishing boats. The main harbour which serves Rome is Port of Civitavecchia, located about 62 km (39 mi) northwest of the city.^[171]

The city suffers from traffic problems largely due to this radial street pattern, making it difficult for Romans to move easily from the vicinity of one of the radial roads to another without going into the historic centre or using the ring-road. These problems are not helped by the limited size of Rome’s metro system when compared to other cities of similar size. In addition, Rome has only 21 taxis for every 10,000 inhabitants, far below other major European cities.^[172] Chronic congestion caused by cars during the 1970s and 1980s led to restrictions being placed on vehicle access to the inner city-centre during the hours of daylight. Areas, where these restrictions apply, are known as Limited Traffic Zones (Zona a Traffico Limitato (ZTL) in Italian). More recently, heavy night-time traffic in Trastevere, Testaccio and San Lorenzo has led to the creation of night-time ZTLs in those districts.

A 3-line metro system called the Metropolitana operates in Rome. Construction on the first branch started in the 1930s.^[173] The line had been planned to quickly connect the main railway station with the newly planned E42 area in the southern suburbs, where 1942 the World Fair was supposed to be held. The event never took place because of war, but the area was later partly redesigned and renamed EUR (Esposizione Universale di Roma: Rome Universal Exhibition) in the 1950s to serve as a modern business district. The line was finally opened in 1955, and it is now the south part of the B Line.

The A line opened in 1980 from Ottaviano to Anagnina stations, later extended in stages (1999–2000) to Battistini. In the 1990s, an extension of the B line was opened from Termini to Rebibbia. This underground network is generally reliable (although it may become very congested at peak times and during events, especially the A line) as it is relatively short.

The A and B lines intersect at Roma Termini station. A new branch of the B line (B1) opened on 13 June 2012 after an estimated building cost of €500 million. B1 connects to line B at Piazza Bologna and has four stations over a distance of 3.9 km (2 mi).

A third line, the C line, is under construction with an estimated cost of €3 billion and will have 30 stations over a distance of 25.5 km (16 mi). It will partly replace the existing Termini-Pantano rail line. It will feature full automated, driverless trains.^[174] The first section with 15 stations connecting Pantano with the quarter of Centocelle in the eastern part of the city, opened on 9 November 2014.^[175] The end of the work was scheduled in 2015, but archaeological findings often delay underground construction work.

A fourth line, D line, is also planned. It will have 22 stations over a distance of 20 km (12 mi). The first section was projected to open in 2015 and the final sections before 2035, but due to the city’s financial crisis, the project has been put on hold.

Above-ground public transport in Rome is made up of a bus, tram and urban train network (FR lines). The bus, tram, metro and urban railways network is run by Atac S.p.A. (which originally stood for the Municipal Bus and Tramways Company, Azienda Tramvie e Autobus del Comune in Italian). The bus network has in excess of 350 bus lines and over eight thousand bus stops, whereas the more-limited tram system has 39 km (24 mi) of track and 192 stops.^[176] There is also one trolleybus line, opened in 2005, and
additional two lines were opened.^[177]

International entities, organisations and involvement

Among the global cities, Rome is unique in having two sovereign entities located entirely within its city limits, the Holy See, represented by the Vatican City State, and the territorially smaller Sovereign Military Order of Malta. The Vatican is an enclave of the Italian capital city and a sovereign possession of the Holy See, which is the Diocese of Rome and the supreme government of the Roman Catholic Church. For this reason, Rome has sometimes been described as the capital of two states.^[178][179] Rome, therefore, hosts foreign embassies to the Italian government, to the Holy See, to the Order of Malta and to certain international organisations. Several international Roman Colleges and Pontifical Universities are located in Rome.

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and its official seat is the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran (of which the President of the French Republic is ex officio the «first and only honorary canon», a title held by the heads of the French state since King Henry IV of France). Another body, the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM), took refuge in Rome in 1834, due to the conquest of Malta by Napoleon in 1798. It is sometimes classified as having sovereignty but does not claim any territory in Rome or anywhere else, hence leading to dispute over its actual sovereign status.

Rome is the seat of the so-called «Polo Romano»^[180] made up by three main international agencies of the United Nations: the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Rome has traditionally been involved in the process of European political integration. The Treaties of the EU are located in Palazzo della Farnesina, the seat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because the Italian government is the depositary of the treaties. In 1957 the city hosted the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community (predecessor to the European Union), and also played host to the official signing of the proposed European Constitution in July 2004.

Rome is the seat of the European Olympic Committee and of the NATO Defense College. The city is the place where the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the European Convention on Human Rights were formulated.

The city hosts also other important international entities such as the IDLO (International Development Law Organisation), the ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) and the UNIDROIT (International Institute for the Unification of Private Law).

International relations

Twin towns and sister cities

Since 9 April 1956, Rome is exclusively and reciprocally twinned only with:

• Paris, France, 1956

Solo Parigi è degna di Roma; solo Roma è degna di Parigi. (in Italian)

Seule Paris est digne de Rome; seule Rome est digne de Paris. (in French)

«Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris.»^{[181][182][183][184][185]}

Other relationships

Rome’s other partner cities are:^[186]

See also

• References to Rome in Coptic Literature — Coptic Scriptorium database

• Outline of Rome
• SPQR
• Tourism in Italy

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

• Comune of Rome (in Italian)
• APT (official Tourist Office) of the City of Rome (in English)
• Rome Museums – official site. Archived 1 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine (in English).
• Capitoline Museums (in English)
• Geographic data related to Rome at OpenStreetMap

Media related to Roma at Wikimedia Commons

Italy’s capital city of Rome is known by many names—and not just translations into other languages. Rome has recorded history going back more than two millennia, and legends go back even further, to about 753 BCE, when the Romans traditionally date the founding of their city.

Etymology of Rome

The city is called Roma in Latin, which has an uncertain origin. Some scholars believe the word refers to the city’s founder and first king, Romulus, and roughly translates to «oar» or «swift.» There are also additional theories that «Rome» derives from the Umbrian language, where the word might mean «flowing waters.» Ancestors of the Umbri were likely in Etruria prior to the Etruscans. 

Centuries of Names for Rome

Rome is often called the Eternal City, a reference to its longevity and used first by the Roman poet Tibullus (c. 54–19 BCE) (ii.5.23) and a bit later, by Ovid (8 CE).

Rome is the Caput Mundi (Capital of the world), or so said the Roman poet Marco Anneo Lucano in 61 CE. The Roman emperor Septimius Severus (145–211 CE) first called Rome the Urbs Sacra (the Sacred City)—he was speaking of Rome as the sacred city of the Roman religion, not that of the Christian religion, which it would become later.

The Romans were shocked when the city fell to a sack by the Goths in 410 CE, and many said that the reason the city had fallen was that they had forsaken the old Roman religion for Christianity. In response, St. Augustine wrote his City of God in which he censured the Goths for their attack. The perfect society could be a City of God, said Augustine, or an Earthly City, depending on whether Rome could embrace Christianity and be cleaned of its moral turpitude.

Rome is the City of Seven Hills: Aventine, Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal, and Vimina. The Italian painter Giotto di Bondone (1267–1377) perhaps said it best when he described Rome as «the city of echoes, the city of illusions, and the city of yearning.»

A Handful of Quotes

• “I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.” Augustus (Roman Emperor 27 BCE–14 CE)
• ”How is it possible to say an unkind or irreverential word of Rome? The city of all time, and of all the world!” Nathaniel Hawthorne (American novelist. 1804–1864)
• “Everyone soon or late comes round by Rome.” Robert Browning (English Poet 1812–1889)
• Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) called Rome the «Scarlet Woman,» and the «the one city of the soul.»
• “Italy has changed. But Rome is Rome.” Robert De Niro (American actor, born 1943)

The Secret Name of Rome

Several writers from antiquity—including the historians Pliny and Plutarch—reported that Rome had a sacred name that was secret and that revealing that name would allow the enemies of Rome to ruin the city.

The secret name of Rome, the ancients said, was kept by the cult of the goddess Angerona or Angeronia, who was, depending on which source you read, the goddess of silence, of anguish and fear, or of the new year. There was said to be a statue of her at Volupia which showed her with her mouth bound and sealed up. The name was so secret, that no one was allowed to say it, not even in rituals for Angerona.

According to reports, one man, the poet and grammarian Quintus Valerius Soranus (~145 BCE–82 BCE), revealed the name. He was seized by the Senate and either crucified on the spot or fled in fear of punishment to Sicily, where he was captured by the governor and executed there. Modern historians are not so sure any of that is true: although Valerius was executed, it may have been for political reasons.

Plenty of names have been suggested for the secret name of Rome: Hirpa, Evouia, Valentia, Amor are just a few. A secret name has the power of a talisman, even if it didn’t actually exist, powerful enough to make it into the anecdotes of antiquarians. If Rome has a secret name, there is knowledge of the ancient world that is unknowable.

Popular Phrases

• «All roads lead to Rome.» This idiom means that there are many different methods or ways to reach the same goal or conclusion, and likely refers to the extensive Roman Empire’s road system throughout its hinterlands.
• «When in Rome, do as the Romans do.» Adapt to your decisions and actions to that of the present circumstances.
• «Rome wasn’t built in a day.» Great projects take time.
• «Do not sit in Rome and strive with the Pope.« It is best not to criticize or oppose someone in his or her own territory.

Sources

• Cairns, Francis. «Roma and Her Tutelary Deity: Names and Ancient Evidence.» Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts: Studies in Honour of A. J. Woodman. Eds. Kraus, Christina S., John Marincola and Christoper Pelling. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 245–66.
• Moore, F. G. «On Urbs Aeterna and Urbs Sacra.» Transactions of the American Philological Association (1869-1896) 25 (1894): 34–60.
• Murphy, Trevor. «Privileged Knowledge: Valerius Soranus and the Secret Name of Rome.» Rituals in Ink. A Conference on Religion and Literary Production in Ancient Rome. Eds. Barchiesi, Alessandro, Jörg Rüpke and Susan Stephens: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004.
• «Rome.» Oxford English Dictionary (OED) Online, Oxford University Press, June 2019
• Van Nuffelen, Peter. «Varro’s Divine Antiquities: Roman Religion as an Image of Truth.» Classical Philology 105.2 (2010): 162–88.

The history of Rome includes the history of the city of Rome as well as the civilisation of ancient Rome. Roman history has been influential on the modern world, especially in the history of the Catholic Church, and Roman law has influenced many modern legal systems. Roman history can be divided into the following periods:

• Pre-historical and early Rome, covering Rome’s earliest inhabitants and the legend of its founding by Romulus
• The period of Etruscan dominance and the regal period, in which, according to tradition, Romulus was the first of seven kings
• The Roman Republic, which commenced in 509 BC when kings were replaced with rule by elected magistrates. The period was marked by vast expansion of Roman territory. During the 5th century BC, Rome gained regional dominance in Latium. With the Punic Wars from 264 to 146 BC, ancient Rome gained dominance over the Western Mediterranean, displacing Carthage as the dominant regional power.
• The Roman Empire followed the Republic, which waned with the rise of Julius Caesar, and by all measures concluded after a period of civil war and the victory of Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian, in 27 BC over Mark Antony. With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, Rome’s power declined, and it eventually became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, as the Duchy of Rome, until the 8th century. At this time, the city was reduced to a fraction of its former size, being sacked several times in the 5th to 6th centuries, even temporarily depopulated entirely.^[1]
• Medieval Rome is characterized by a break with Constantinople and the formation of the Papal States. The Papacy struggled to retain influence in the emerging Holy Roman Empire, and during the saeculum obscurum, the population of Rome fell to as low as 30,000 inhabitants. Following the East–West Schism and the limited success in the Investiture Controversy, the Papacy did gain considerable influence in the High Middle Ages, but with the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism, the city of Rome was reduced to irrelevance, its population falling below 20,000. Rome’s decline into complete irrelevance during the medieval period, with the associated lack of construction activity, assured the survival of very significant ancient Roman material remains in the centre of the city, some abandoned and others continuing in use.
• The Roman Renaissance occurred in the 15th century, when Rome replaced Florence as the centre of artistic and cultural influence. The Roman Renaissance was cut short abruptly with the devastation of the city in 1527, but the Papacy reasserted itself in the Counter-Reformation, and the city continued to flourish during the early modern period. Rome was annexed by Napoleon and was part of the First French Empire from 1798 to 1814.
• Modern history, the period from the 19th century to the present. Rome came under siege again after the Allied invasion of Italy and was bombed several times. It was declared an open city on 14 August 1943. Rome became the capital of the Italian Republic (established in 1946). With a population of 4.4 million (as of 2015; 2.9 million within city limits), it is the largest city in Italy. It is among the largest urban areas of the European Union and classified as a global city.

Rome: Ruins of the Forum, Looking towards the Capitol (1742) by Canaletto

Ancient RomeEdit

For more information, and the history of Rome as a complete civilization, see Ancient Rome.
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Rome timeline
Roman Kingdom and Republic
753 BC	According to legend, Romulus founds Rome.
753–509 BC	Rule of the seven Kings of Rome.
509 BC	Creation of the Republic.
390 BC	The Gauls invade Rome. Rome sacked.
264–146 BC	Punic Wars.
146–44 BC	Social and Civil Wars. Emergence of Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar.
44 BC	Julius Caesar assassinated.

Earliest historyEdit

There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from at least 5,000 years, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.^[2] The evidence suggesting the city’s ancient foundation is also obscured by the legend of Rome’s beginning involving Romulus and Remus.

The traditional date for the founding of Rome is 753-04-21 BC, following Marcus Terentius Varro,^[3] and the city and surrounding region of Latium has continued to be inhabited with little interruption since around that time. Excavations made in 2014 have revealed a wall built long before the city’s official founding year. Archaeologists uncovered a stone wall and pieces of pottery dating to the 9th century BC and the beginning of the 8th century BC, and there is evidence of people arriving on the Palatine hill as early as the 10th century BC.^[4][5]

The site of Sant’Omobono Area is crucial for understanding the related processes of monumentalization, urbanization, and state formation in Rome in the late Archaic period. The Sant’Omobono temple site dates to 7th–6th century BC, making these the oldest known temple remains in Rome.^[6]

Legend of Rome originEdit

The origin of the city’s name is thought to be that of the reputed founder and first ruler, the legendary Romulus.^[7] It is said that Romulus and his twin brother Remus, apparent sons of the god Mars and descendants of the Trojan hero Aeneas, were suckled by a she-wolf after being abandoned, then decided to build a city. The brothers argued, Romulus killed Remus, and then named the city Rome after himself. After founding and naming Rome (as the story goes), he permitted men of all classes to come to Rome as citizens, including slaves and freemen without distinction.^[8] To provide his citizens with wives, Romulus invited the neighboring tribes to a festival in Rome where he abducted many of their young women (known as The Rape of the Sabine Women). After the ensuing war with the Sabines, Romulus shared the kingship with Sabine King Titus Tatius.^[9] Romulus selected 100 of the most noble men to form the Roman senate as an advisory council to the king. These men he called patres, and their descendants became the patricians. He created three centuries of equites: Ramnes (meaning Romans), Tities (after the Sabine king), and Luceres (Etruscans). He also divided the general populace into thirty curiae, named after thirty of the Sabine women who had intervened to end the war between Romulus and Tatius. The curiae formed the voting units in the Comitia Curiata.^[10]

Attempts have been made to find a linguistic root for the name Rome. Possibilities include derivation from the Greek Ῥώμη, meaning bravery, courage;^[11] possibly the connection is with a root *rum-, «teat», with a theoretical reference to the totem wolf that adopted and suckled the cognately-named twins. The Etruscan name of the city seems to have been Ruma.^[12] Compare also Rumon, former name of the Tiber River. Its further etymology remains unknown, as with most Etruscan words. Thomas G. Tucker’s Concise Etymological Dictionary of Latin (1931) suggests that the name is most probably from *urobsma (cf. urbs, robur) and otherwise, «but less likely» from *urosma «hill» (cf. Skt. varsman- «height, point,» Old Slavonic врьхъ «top, summit», Russ. верх «top; upward direction», Lith. virsus «upper»).

City’s formationEdit

Rome grew from pastoral/settlements on the Palatine Hill and surrounding hills approximately 30 km (19 mi) from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the south side of the Tiber. The Quirinal Hill was probably an outpost for the Sabines, another Italic-speaking people. At this location, the Tiber forms a Z-shaped curve that contains an island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic following the river valley and of traders traveling north and south on the west side of the peninsula.

Archaeological finds have confirmed that there were two fortified settlements in the 8th century BC, in the area of the future Rome: Rumi on the Palatine Hill, and Titientes on the Quirinal Hill, backed by the Luceres living in the nearby woods.^[13] These were simply three of numerous Italic-speaking communities that existed in Latium, a plain on the Italian peninsula, by the 1st millennium BC. The origins of the Italic peoples lie in prehistory and are therefore not precisely known, but their Indo-European languages migrated from the east in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.

According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, many Roman historians (including Porcius Cato and Gaius Sempronius) considered the origins of the Romans (descendants of the Aborigines) as Greek despite the fact that their knowledge was derived from Greek legendary accounts.^[14] The Sabines, specifically, were first mentioned in Dionysius’s account for having captured the city of Lista by surprise, which was regarded as the mother-city of the Aborigines.^[15]

Italic contextEdit

The Italic speakers in the area included Latins (in the west), Sabines (in the upper valley of the Tiber), Umbrians (in the north-east), Samnites (in the South), Oscans, and others. In the 8th century BC, they shared the peninsula with two other major ethnic groups: the Etruscans in the North and the Greeks in the south.

The Etruscans (Etrusci or Tusci in Latin) are attested north of Rome in Etruria (modern northern Lazio, Tuscany and part of Umbria). They founded cities such as Tarquinia, Veii, and Volterra and deeply influenced Roman culture, as clearly shown by the Etruscan origin of some of the mythical Roman kings. Historians have no literature, no texts of religion or philosophy; therefore, much of what is known about this civilisation is derived from grave goods and tomb findings.^[16]

The Greeks had founded many colonies in Southern Italy between 750 and 550 BC (which the Romans later called Magna Graecia), such as Cumae, Naples, Reggio Calabria, Crotone, Sybaris, and Taranto, as well as in the eastern two-thirds of Sicily.^[17][18]

Etruscan dominanceEdit

The Servian Wall takes its name from king Servius Tullius and are the first true walls of Rome

After 650 BC, the Etruscans became dominant in Italy and expanded into north-central Italy. Roman tradition claimed that Rome had been under the control of seven kings from 753 to 509 BC beginning with the mythical Romulus who was said to have founded the city of Rome along with his brother Remus. The last three kings were said to be Etruscan (at least partially)—namely Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus. (Priscus is said by the ancient literary sources to be the son of a Greek refugee and an Etruscan mother.) Their names refer to the Etruscan town of Tarquinia.

Livy, Plutarch, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and others claim that Rome was ruled during its first centuries by a succession of seven kings. The traditional chronology, as codified by Varro, allots 243 years for their reigns, an average of almost 35 years, which has been generally discounted by modern scholarship since the work of Barthold Georg Niebuhr. The Gauls destroyed much of Rome’s historical records when they sacked the city after the Battle of the Allia in 390 BC (according to Polybius, the battle occurred in 387/6) and what was left was eventually lost to time or theft. With no contemporary records of the kingdom existing, all accounts of the kings must be carefully questioned.^[20] The list of kings is also of dubious historical value, though the last-named kings may be historical figures.
It is believed by some historians (again, this is disputed) that Rome was under the influence of the Etruscans for about a century. During this period, a bridge was built called the Pons Sublicius to replace the Tiber ford, and the Cloaca Maxima was also built; the Etruscans are said to have been great engineers of this type of structure. From a cultural and technical point of view, Etruscans had arguably the second-greatest impact on Roman development, only surpassed by the Greeks.

Expanding further south, the Etruscans came into direct contact with the Greeks and initially had success in conflicts with the Greek colonists; after which, Etruria went into a decline. Taking advantage of this, Rome rebelled and gained independence from the Etruscans around 500 BC. It also abandoned monarchy in favour of a republican system based on a Senate, composed of the nobles of the city, along with popular assemblies which ensured political participation for most of the freeborn men and elected magistrates annually.

The Etruscans left a lasting influence on Rome. The Romans learned to build temples from them, and the Etruscans may have introduced the worship of a triad of gods — Juno, Minerva, and Jupiter — from the Etruscan gods: Uni, Menrva, and Tinia. However, the influence of Etruscan people in the development of Rome is often overstated.^[21] Rome was primarily a Latin city. It never became fully Etruscan. Also, evidence shows that Romans were heavily influenced by the Greek cities in the South, mainly through trade.^[22]

Roman RepublicEdit

The commonly held stories of the early part of the Republic (before roughly 300 BC, when Old Latin inscriptions and Greek histories about Rome provide more concrete evidence of events) are generally considered to be legendary, their historicity being a topic of debate among classicists. The Roman Republic traditionally dates from 509 BC to 27 BC. After 500 BC, Rome is said to have joined with the Latin cities in defence against incursions by the Sabines. Winning the Battle of Lake Regillus in 493 BC, Rome established again the supremacy over the Latin countries it had lost after the fall of the monarchy. After a lengthy series of struggles, this supremacy became fixed in 393, when the Romans finally subdued the Volsci and Aequi. In 394 BC, they also conquered the menacing Etruscan neighbour of Veii. The Etruscan power was now limited to Etruria itself, and Rome was the dominant city in Latium.

Also a formal treaty with the city of Carthage is reported to have been made in the end of the 6th century BC, which defined the spheres of influence of each city and regulated the trade between them.

At the same time, Heraclides stated that 4th-century Rome was a Greek city (Plut. Cam. 22).

Rome’s early enemies were the neighbouring hill tribes of the Volscians, the Aequi, and of course the Etruscans. As years passed and military successes increased Roman territory, new adversaries appeared. The fiercest were the Gauls, a loose collective of peoples who controlled much of Northern Europe including what is modern North and Central-East Italy.

In 387 BC, Rome was sacked and burned by the Senones coming from eastern Italy and led by Brennus, who had successfully defeated the Roman army at the Battle of the Allia in Etruria. Multiple contemporary records suggest that the Senones hoped to punish Rome for violating its diplomatic neutrality in Etruria. The Senones marched 130 kilometres (81 mi) to Rome without harming the surrounding countryside; once they had sacked the city, the Senones withdrew from Rome.^[23] Brennus was defeated by the dictator Furius Camillus at Tusculum soon afterwards.^[24][25]

After that, Rome hastily rebuilt its buildings and went on the offensive, conquering the Etruscans and seizing territory from the Gauls in the north. After 345 BC, Rome pushed south against other Latins. Their main enemy in this quadrant were the fierce Samnites, who outsmarted and trapped the legions in 321 BC at the Battle of Caudine Forks. In spite of these and other temporary setbacks, the Romans advanced steadily. By 290 BC, Rome controlled over half of the Italian peninsula. In the 3rd century BC, Rome brought the Greek poleis in the south under its control as well.^{[citation needed]}

Map showing Roman expansion in Italy.

Amidst the never-ending wars (from the beginning of the Republic up to the Principate, the doors of the temple of Janus were closed only twice—when they were open it meant that Rome was at war), Rome had to face a severe major social crisis, the Conflict of the Orders, a political struggle between the Plebeians (commoners) and Patricians (aristocrats) of the ancient Roman Republic, in which the Plebeians sought political equality with the Patricians. It played a major role in the development of the Constitution of the Roman Republic. It began in 494 BC, when, while Rome was at war with two neighboring tribes, the Plebeians all left the city (the first Plebeian Secession). The result of this first secession was the creation of the office of Plebeian Tribune, and with it the first acquisition of real power by the Plebeians.^[26]

Map of the centre of Rome during the time of the Roman Empire

According to tradition, Rome became a republic in 509 BC. However, it took a few centuries for Rome to become the great city of popular imagination. By the 3rd century BC, Rome had become the pre-eminent city of the Italian peninsula. During the Punic Wars between Rome and the great Mediterranean empire of Carthage (264 to 146 BC), Rome’s stature increased further as it became the capital of an overseas empire for the first time. Beginning in the 2nd century BC, Rome went through a significant population expansion as Italian farmers, driven from their ancestral farmlands by the advent of massive, slave-operated farms called latifundia, flocked to the city in great numbers. The victory over Carthage in the First Punic War brought the first two provinces outside the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia.^[27] Parts of Spain (Hispania) followed, and in the beginning of the 2nd century the Romans got involved in the affairs of the Greek world. By then all Hellenistic kingdoms and the Greek city-states were in decline, exhausted from endless civil wars and relying on mercenary troops.

The Romans looked upon the Greek civilisation with great admiration. The Greeks saw Rome as a useful ally in their civil strifes, and it wasn’t long before the Roman legions were invited to intervene in Greece. In less than 50 years the whole of mainland Greece was subdued. The Roman legions crushed the Macedonian phalanx twice, in 197 and 168 BC; in 146 BC the Roman consul Lucius Mummius razed Corinth, marking the end of free Greece. The same year Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the son of Scipio Africanus, destroyed the city of Carthage, making it a Roman province.

In the following years, Rome continued its conquests in Spain with Tiberius Gracchus, and it set foot in Asia, when the last king of Pergamum gave his kingdom to the Roman people. The end of the 2nd century brought another threat, when a great host of Germanic peoples, namely Cimbri and Teutones, crossed the river Rhone and moved to Italy. Gaius Marius was consul five consecutive times (seven total), and won two decisive battles in 102 and 101 BC. He also reformed the Roman army, giving it such a good reorganization that it remained unchanged for centuries.

The first thirty years of the last century BC were characterised by serious internal problems that threatened the existence of the Republic. The Social War, between Rome and its allies, and the Servile Wars (slave uprisings) were hard conflicts,^[28] all within Italy, and forced the Romans to change their policy with regards to their allies and subjects.^[29] By then Rome had become an extensive power, with great wealth which derived from the conquered people (as tribute, food or manpower, i.e. slaves). The allies of Rome felt bitter since they had fought by the side of the Romans, and yet they were not citizens and shared little in the rewards. Although they lost the war, they finally got what they asked, and by the beginning of the 1st century AD practically all free inhabitants of Italy were Roman citizens.

However, the growth of the Imperium Romanum (Roman power) created new problems, and new demands, that the old political system of the Republic, with its annually elected magistrates and its sharing of power, could not solve. The dictatorship of Sulla, the extraordinary commands of Pompey Magnus, and the first triumvirate made that clear. In January 49 BC, Julius Caesar the conqueror of Gaul, marched his legions against Rome. In the following years, he vanquished his opponents, and ruled Rome for four years. After his assassination in 44 BC, the Senate tried to reestablish the Republic, but its champions, Marcus Junius Brutus (descendant of the founder of the republic) and Gaius Cassius Longinus were defeated by Caesar’s lieutenant Marcus Antonius and Caesar’s nephew, Octavian.

The years 44–31 BC mark the struggle for power between Marcus Antonius and Octavian (later known as Augustus). Finally, on 2 September 31 BC, in the Greek promontory of Actium, the final battle took place in the sea. Octavian was victorious, and became the sole ruler of Rome (and its empire). That date marks the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Principate.^[30][31]

Roman EmpireEdit

Development of the Roman empire

Rome Timeline
Roman Empire
44 BC – 14 AD	Augustus establishes the Empire.
64 AD	Great Fire of Rome during Nero’s rule.
69–96	Flavian dynasty. Building of the Colosseum.
3rd century	Crisis of the Roman Empire. Building of the Baths of Caracalla and the Aurelian Walls.
284–337	Diocletian and Constantine. Building of the first Christian basilicas. Battle of Milvian Bridge. Rome is replaced by Constantinople as the capital of the Empire.
395	Definitive separation of Western and Eastern Roman Empire.
410	The Goths of Alaric sack Rome.
455	The Vandals of Gaiseric sack Rome.
476	Fall of the west empire and deposition of the final emperor Romulus Augustus.
6th century	Gothic War (535–554). The Goths cut off the aqueducts in the siege of 537, an act which historians traditionally regard as the beginning of the Middle Ages in Italy[32]
608	Emperor Phocas donates the Pantheon to Pope Boniface IV, converting it into a Christian church. Column of Phocas (the last addition made to the Forum Romanum) is erected.
630	The Curia Julia (vacant since the disappearance of the Roman Senate) is transformed into the basilica of Sant’Adriano al Foro.
663	Constans II visits Rome for twelve days—the only emperor to set foot in Rome for two centuries. He strips buildings of their ornaments and bronze to be carried back to Constantinople.
751	Lombard conquest of the Exarchate of Ravenna, the Duchy of Rome is now completely cut off from the empire.
754	Alliance with the Franks, Pepin the Younger, declared Patrician of the Romans, invades Italy. Establishment of the Papal States.

Early EmpireEdit

Life in Rome; animation in Latin with English subtitles

By the end of the Republic, the city of Rome had achieved a grandeur befitting the capital of an empire dominating the whole of the Mediterranean. It was, at the time, the largest city in the world. Estimates of its peak population range from 450,000 to over 3.5 million people with estimates of 1 to 2 million being most popular with historians.^[33] This grandeur increased under Augustus, who completed Caesar’s projects and added many of his own, such as the Forum of Augustus and the Ara Pacis. He is said to have remarked that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble (Urbem latericium invenit, marmoream reliquit). Augustus’s successors sought to emulate his success in part by adding their own contributions to the city. In 64 AD, during the reign of Nero, the Great Fire of Rome left much of the city destroyed, but in many ways it was used as an excuse for new development.^[34][35]

Rome was a subsidised city at the time, with roughly 15 to 25 percent of its grain supply being paid by the central government. Commerce and industry played a smaller role compared to that of other cities like Alexandria. This meant that Rome had to depend upon goods and production from other parts of the Empire to sustain such a large population. This was mostly paid by taxes that were levied by the Roman government. If it had not been subsidised, Rome would have been significantly smaller.^[36]

The Arch of Gallienus is one of the few monuments of ancient Rome from the 3rd century, and was a gate in the Servian Wall. Two side gates were destroyed in 1447.

Rome’s population declined after its apex in the 2nd century. At the end of that century, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Antonine Plague killed 2,000 people a day.^[37] Marcus Aurelius died in 180, his reign being the last of the «Five Good Emperors» and Pax Romana. His son Commodus, who had been co-emperor since 177 AD, assumed full imperial power, which is generally associated with the beginning of the decline of the Western Roman Empire. Rome’s population was only a fraction of its peak when the Aurelian Wall was completed in 273 AD (in that year its population was only around 500,000).

Crisis of the Third CenturyEdit

Starting in the early 3rd century, matters changed. The «Crisis of the Third Century» defines the disasters and political troubles for the Empire, which nearly collapsed. The new feeling of danger and the menace of barbarian invasions was clearly shown by the decision of Emperor Aurelian, who at year 273 finished encircling the capital itself with a massive wall which had a perimeter that measured close to 20 km (12 mi). Rome formally remained capital of the empire, but emperors spent less and less time there. At the end of 3rd century Diocletian’s political reforms, Rome was deprived of its traditional role of administrative capital of the Empire. Later, western emperors ruled from Milan or Ravenna, or cities in Gaul. In 330, Constantine I established a second capital at Constantinople.

ChristianizationEdit

Christianity reached Rome during the 1st century AD. For the first two centuries of the Christian era, Imperial authorities largely viewed Christianity simply as a Jewish sect rather than a distinct religion. No emperor issued general laws against the faith or its Church, and persecutions, such as they were, were carried out under the authority of local government officials.^[38] A surviving letter from Pliny the Younger, governor of Bythinia, to the emperor Trajan describes his persecution and executions of Christians; Trajan notably responded that Pliny should not seek out Christians nor heed anonymous denunciations, but only punish open Christians who refused to recant.^[39]

Suetonius mentions in passing that during the reign of Nero «punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition» (superstitionis novae ac maleficae).^[40] He gives no reason for the punishment. Tacitus reports that after the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, some among the population held Nero responsible and that the emperor attempted to deflect blame onto the Christians.^[41] The war against the Jews during Nero’s reign, which so destabilised the empire that it led to civil war and Nero’s suicide, provided an additional rationale for suppression of this ‘Jewish’ sect.

Diocletian undertook what was to be the most severe and last major persecution of Christians, lasting from 303 to 311. Christianity had become too widespread to suppress, and in 313, the Edict of Milan made tolerance the official policy. Constantine I (sole ruler 324–337) became the first Christian emperor, and in 380 Theodosius I established Christianity as the official religion.

Under Theodosius, visits to the pagan temples were forbidden,^[42] the eternal fire in the Temple of Vesta in the Roman Forum extinguished, the Vestal Virgins disbanded, auspices and witchcrafting punished. Theodosius refused to restore the Altar of Victory in the Senate House, as asked by remaining pagan Senators.

The Empire’s conversion to Christianity made the Bishop of Rome (later called the Pope) the senior religious figure in the Western Empire, as officially stated in 380 by the Edict of Thessalonica. In spite of its increasingly marginal role in the Empire, Rome retained its historic prestige, and this period saw the last wave of construction activity: Constantine’s predecessor Maxentius built buildings such as its basilica in the Forum, Constantine himself erected the Arch of Constantine to celebrate his victory over the former, and Diocletian built the greatest baths of all. Constantine was also the first patron of official Christian buildings in the city. He donated the Lateran Palace to the Pope, and built the first great basilica, the old St. Peter’s Basilica.

Germanic invasions and collapse of the Western EmpireEdit

The ancient basilica of St. Lawrence outside the walls was built directly over the tomb of the people’s favourite Roman martyr

Still Rome remained one of the strongholds of Paganism, led by the aristocrats and senators. However, the new walls did not stop the city being sacked first by Alaric on 24 August 410, by Geiseric on 2 June 455, and even by general Ricimer’s unpaid Roman troops (largely composed of barbarians) on 11 July 472.^[43][44]
This was the first time in almost 800 years that Rome had fallen to an enemy. The previous sack of Rome had been accomplished by the Gauls under their leader Brennus in 387 BC. The sacking of 410 is seen as a major landmark in the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. St. Jerome, living in Bethlehem at the time, wrote that «The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken.»^[45] These sackings of the city astonished all the Roman world. In any case, the damage caused by the sackings may have been overestimated. The population already started to decline from the late 4th century onward, although around the middle of the fifth century it seems that Rome continued to be the most populous city of the two parts of the Empire, with a population of not less than 650,000 inhabitants.^[46]
The decline greatly accelerated following the capture of Africa Proconsularis by the Vandals. Many inhabitants now fled as the city no longer could be supplied with grain from Africa from the mid-5th century onward.

At the end of the 6th century Rome’s population had reduced to around 30,000.^[47] Many monuments were being destroyed by the citizens themselves, who stripped stones from closed temples and other precious buildings, and even burned statues to make lime for their personal use. In addition, most of the increasing number of churches were built in this way. For example, the first Saint Peter’s Basilica was erected using spoils from the abandoned Circus of Nero.^[48] This architectural cannibalism was a constant feature of Roman life until the Renaissance. From the 4th century, imperial edicts against stripping of stones and especially marble were common, but the need for their repetition shows that they were ineffective. Sometimes new churches were created by simply taking advantage of early Pagan temples, while sometimes changing the Pagan god or hero to a corresponding Christian saint or martyr. In this way, the Temple of Romulus and Remus became the basilica of the twin saints Cosmas and Damian. Later, the Pantheon, Temple of All Gods, became the church of All Martyrs.

Eastern Roman (Byzantine) restorationEdit

Porta San Paolo, a gate in the Aurelian Walls, built between 271 AD and 275 AD. During the Gothic Wars of the mid-6th century, Rome was besieged several times by Eastern Roman and Ostrogoth armies. Ostrogoths of Totila entered through this gate in 549, because of the treason of the Isaurian garrison.

In 480, the last Western Roman emperor, Julius Nepos, was murdered and a Roman general of barbarian origin, Odoacer, declared allegiance to Eastern Roman emperor Zeno.^[49] Despite owing nominal allegiance to Constantinople, Odoacer and later the Ostrogoths continued, like the last emperors, to rule Italy as a virtually independent realm from Ravenna. Meanwhile, the Senate, even though long since stripped of wider powers, continued to administer Rome itself, with the Pope usually coming from a senatorial family. This situation continued until Theodahad murdered Amalasuntha, a pro-imperial Gothic queen, and usurped the power in 535. The Eastern Roman emperor, Justinian I (reigned 527–565), used this as a pretext to send forces to Italy under his famed general Belisarius, recapturing the city next year, on 9 December 536 AD. In 537–538, the Eastern Romans successfully defended the city in a year-long siege against the Ostrogoth army, and eventually took Ravenna, too.^[49]

Gothic resistance revived however, and on 17 December 546, the Ostrogoths under Totila recaptured and sacked Rome.^[50] Belisarius soon recovered the city, but the Ostrogoths retook it in 549. Belisarius was replaced by Narses, who captured Rome from the Ostrogoths for good in 552, ending the so-called Gothic Wars which had devastated much of Italy. The continual war around Rome in the 530s and 540s left it in a state of total disrepair – near-abandoned and desolate with much of its lower-lying parts turned into unhealthy marshes as the drainage systems were neglected and the Tiber’s embankments fell into disrepair in the course of the latter half of the 6th century.^[51] Here, malaria developed. The aqueducts except for one were not repaired. The population, without imports of grain and oil from Sicily, shrank to less than 50,000 concentrated near the Tiber and around the Campus Martius, abandoning those districts without water supply. There is a legend, significant though untrue, that there was a moment where no one remained living in Rome.^{[citation needed]}

Justinian I provided grants for the maintenance of public buildings, aqueducts and bridges—though, being mostly drawn from an Italy dramatically impoverished by the recent wars, these were not always sufficient. He also styled himself the patron of its remaining scholars, orators, physicians and lawyers in the stated hope that eventually more youths would seek a better education. After the wars, the Senate was theoretically restored, but under the supervision of the urban prefect and other officials appointed by, and responsible to, the Eastern Roman authorities in Ravenna.

However, the Pope was now one of the leading religious figures in the entire Byzantine Roman Empire and effectively more powerful locally than either the remaining senators or local Eastern Roman (Byzantine) officials. In practice, local power in Rome devolved to the Pope and, over the next few decades, both much of the remaining possessions of the senatorial aristocracy and the local Byzantine Roman administration in Rome were absorbed by the Church.

The reign of Justinian’s nephew and successor Justin II (reigned 565–578) was marked from the Italian point of view by the invasion of the Lombards under Alboin (568). In capturing the regions of Benevento, Lombardy, Piedmont, Spoleto and Tuscany, the invaders effectively restricted Imperial authority to small islands of land surrounding a number of coastal cities, including Ravenna, Naples, Rome and the area of the future Venice. The one inland city continuing under Eastern Roman control was Perugia, which provided a repeatedly threatened overland link between Rome and Ravenna. In 578 and again in 580, the Senate, in some of its last recorded acts, had to ask for the support of Tiberius II Constantine (reigned 578–582) against the approaching Dukes, Faroald I of Spoleto and Zotto of Benevento.

Maurice (reigned 582–602) added a new factor in the continuing conflict by creating an alliance with Childebert II of Austrasia (reigned 575–595). The armies of the Frankish King invaded the Lombard territories in 584, 585, 588 and 590. Rome had suffered badly from a disastrous flood of the Tiber in 589, followed by a plague in 590. The latter is notable for the legend of the angel seen, while the newly elected Pope Gregory I (term 590–604) was passing in procession by Hadrian’s Tomb, to hover over the building and to sheathe his flaming sword as a sign that the pestilence was about to cease. The city was safe from capture at least.

Agilulf, however, the new Lombard King (reigned 591 to c. 616), managed to secure peace with Childebert, reorganised his territories and resumed activities against both Naples and Rome by 592. With the Emperor preoccupied with wars in the eastern borders and the various succeeding Exarchs unable to secure Rome from invasion, Gregory took personal initiative in starting negotiations for a peace treaty. This was completed in the autumn of 598—later recognised by Maurice—lasting until the end of his reign.

The position of the Bishop of Rome was further strengthened under the usurper Phocas (reigned 602–610). Phocas recognised his primacy over that of the Patriarch of Constantinople and even decreed Pope Boniface III (607) to be «the head of all the Churches». Phocas’s reign saw the erection of the last imperial monument in the Roman Forum, the column bearing his name. He also gave the Pope the Pantheon, at the time closed for centuries, and thus probably saved it from destruction.

During the 7th century, an influx of both Byzantine Roman officials and churchmen from elsewhere in the empire made both the local lay aristocracy and Church leadership largely Greek speaking. The population of Rome, a magnet for pilgrims, may have increased to 90,000.^[52] Eleven of thirteen Popes between 678 and 752 were of Greek or Syrian descent.^[53] However, the strong Byzantine Roman cultural influence did not always lead to political harmony between Rome and Constantinople. In the controversy over Monothelitism, popes found themselves under severe pressure (sometimes amounting to physical force) when they failed to keep in step with Constantinople’s shifting theological positions. In 653, Pope Martin I was deported to Constantinople and, after a show trial, exiled to the Crimea, where he died.^[54][55]

Then, in 663, Rome had its first imperial visit for two centuries, by Constans II—its worst disaster since the Gothic Wars when the Emperor proceeded to strip Rome of metal, including that from buildings and statues, to provide armament materials for use against the Saracens. However, for the next half century, despite further tensions, Rome and the Papacy continued to prefer continued Byzantine Roman rule: in part because the alternative was Lombard rule, and in part because Rome’s food was largely coming from Papal estates elsewhere in the Empire, particularly Sicily.

Medieval RomeEdit

Rome Timeline
Medieval Rome
772	The Lombards briefly conquer Rome but Charlemagne liberates the city a year later.
800	Charlemagne is crowned Holy Roman Emperor in St. Peter’s Basilica.
846	The Saracens sack St. Peter.
852	Building of the Leonine Walls.
962	Otto I crowned Emperor by Pope John XII
1000	Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II.
1084	The Normans sack Rome.
1144	Creation of the commune of Rome.
1300	First Jubilee proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII.
1303	Foundation of the Roman University.
1309	Pope Clement V moves the Holy Seat to Avignon.
1347	Cola di Rienzo proclaims himself tribune.
1377	Pope Gregory XI moves the Holy Seat back to Rome.

Break with Constantinople and formation of the Papal StatesEdit

In 727, Pope Gregory II refused to accept the decrees of Emperor Leo III, which promoted the Emperor’s iconoclasm.^[56]
Leo reacted first by trying in vain to abduct the Pontiff, and then by sending a force of Ravennate troops under the command of the Exarch Paulus, but they were pushed back by the Lombards of Tuscia and Benevento. Byzantine general Eutychius sent west by the Emperor successfully captured Rome and restored it as a part of the empire in 728.

On 1 November 731, a council was called in St. Peter’s by Gregory III to excommunicate the iconoclasts. The Emperor responded by confiscating large Papal estates in Sicily and Calabria and transferring areas previously ecclesiastically under the Pope to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Despite the tensions Gregory III never discontinued his support to the imperial efforts against external threats.

In this period the Lombard kingdom revived under the leadership of King Liutprand. In 730, he razed the countryside of Rome to punish the Pope, who had supported Duke Transamund II of Spoleto.^[57]
Though still protected by his massive walls, the Pope could do little against the Lombard king, who managed to ally himself with the Byzantines.^[58] Other protectors were now needed.
Gregory III was the first Pope to ask for concrete help from the Frankish Kingdom, then under the command of Charles Martel (739).^[59]

Liutprand’s successor Aistulf was even more aggressive. He conquered Ferrara and Ravenna, ending the Exarchate of Ravenna. Rome seemed his next victim. In 754, Pope Stephen II went to France to name Pippin the Younger, king of the Franks, as patricius Romanorum, i.e. protector of Rome. In the August of that year the King and Pope together crossed back the Alps and defeated Aistulf at Pavia. When Pippin went back to St. Denis however, Aistulf did not keep his promises, and in 756 besieged Rome for 56 days. The Lombards returned north when they heard news of Pippin again moving to Italy. This time he agreed to give the Pope the promised territories, and the Papal States were born.

In 771 the new King of the Lombards, Desiderius, devised a plot to conquer Rome and seize Pope Stephen III during a feigned pilgrimage within its walls. His main ally was one Paulus Afiarta, chief of the Lombard party within the city. He conquered Rome in 772 but angered Charlemagne. However the plan failed, and Stephen’s successor, Pope Hadrian I called Charlemagne against Desiderius, who was finally defeated in 773.^[60] The Lombard Kingdom was no more, and now Rome entered into the orbit of a new, greater political institution.

Numerous remains from this period, along with a museum devoted to Medieval Rome, can be seen at Crypta Balbi in Rome.

Formation of the Holy Roman EmpireEdit

From the Forum, the medieval and Renaissance Senate House stands directly upon the Tabularium, ancient Rome’s repository of archives.

On 25 April 799 the new Pope, Leo III, led the traditional procession from the Lateran to the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina along the Via Flaminia (now Via del Corso). Two nobles (followers of his predecessor Hadrian) who disliked the weakness of the Pope with regards to Charlemagne, attacked the processional train and delivered a life-threatening wound to the Pope. Leo fled to the King of the Franks, and in November, 800, the King entered Rome with a strong army and a number of French bishops. He declared a judicial trial to decide if Leo III were to remain Pope, or if the deposers’ claims had reasons to be upheld. This trial, however, was only a part of a well thought out chain of events which ultimately surprised the world. The Pope was declared legitimate and the attempters subsequently exiled. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in St. Peter’s Basilica.

This act forever severed the loyalty of Rome from its imperial progenitor, Constantinople. It created instead a rival empire which, after a long series of conquests by Charlemagne, now encompassed most of the Christian Western territories.

Following the death of Charlemagne, the lack of a figure with equal prestige led the new institution into disagreement. At the same time the universal church of Rome had to face emergence of the lay interests of the City itself, spurred on by the conviction that the Roman people, though impoverished and abased, had again the right to elect the Western Emperor. The famous counterfeit document called the Donation of Constantine, prepared by the Papal notaries, guaranteed to the Pope a dominion^[61][62] stretching from Ravenna to Gaeta. This nominally included the suzerainty over Rome, but this was often highly disputed, and as the centuries passed, only the strongest Popes were to be able to assert it. The main element of weakness of the Papacy within the walls of the city was the continued necessity of the election of new popes, in which the emerging noble families soon managed to insert a leading role for themselves. The neighbouring powers, namely the Duchy of Spoleto and Toscana, and later the Emperors, learned how to take their own advantage of this internal weakness, playing the role of arbiters among the contestants.

Rome was indeed prey of anarchy in this age. The lowest point was touched in 897, when a raging crowd exhumed the corpse of a dead pope, Formosus, and put it on trial.^{[63][64][65][66]}

Roman CommuneEdit

From 1048 to 1257, the papacy experienced increasing conflict with the leaders and churches of the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The latter culminated in the East-West Schism, dividing the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Church. From 1257 to 1377, the pope, though the bishop of Rome, resided in Viterbo, Orvieto, and Perugia, and then Avignon. The return of the popes to Rome after the Avignon Papacy was followed by the Western Schism: the division of the western church between two, and for a time three, competing papal claimants.

In this period the renovated Church was again attracting pilgrims and prelates from all the Christian world, and money with them: even with a population of only 30,000, Rome was again becoming a city of consumers dependent upon the presence of a governmental bureaucracy. In the meantime, Italian cities were acquiring increasing autonomy, mainly led by new families which were replacing the old aristocracy with a new class formed by entrepreneurs, traders and merchants. After the sack of Rome by the Normans in 1084, the rebuilding of the city was supported by powerful families such as the Frangipane family and the Pierleoni family, whose wealth came from commerce and banking rather than landholdings. Inspired by neighbouring cities like Tivoli and Viterbo, Rome’s people began to consider adopting a communal status and gaining a substantial amount of freedom from papal authority.

Led by Giordano Pierleoni, the Romans rebelled against the aristocracy and Church rule in 1143. The Senate and the Roman Republic, the Commune of Rome, were born again. Through the inflammatory words of preacher Arnaldo da Brescia, an idealistic, fierce opponent of ecclesiastical property and church interference in temporal affairs, the revolt that led to the creation of the Commune of Rome continued until it was put down in 1155, though it left its mark on the civil government of the Eternal City for centuries. 12th-century Rome, however, had little in common with the empire which had ruled over the Mediterranean some 700 years before, and soon the new Senate had to work hard to survive, choosing an ambiguous policy of shifting its support from the Pope to the Holy Roman Empire and vice versa as the political situation required. At Monteporzio, in 1167, during one of these shifts, in the war with Tusculum, Roman troops were defeated by the imperial forces of Frederick Barbarossa. Luckily, the winning enemies were soon dispersed by a plague and Rome was saved.

Interior of the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the most beautiful Roman churches built or re-built in the Middle Ages

In 1188 the new communal government was finally recognised by Pope Clement III. The Pope had to make large cash payments to the communal officials, while the 56 senators became papal vassals. The Senate always had problems in the accomplishment of its function, and various changes were tried. Often a single Senator was in charge. This sometimes led to tyrannies, which did not help the stability of the newborn organism.

Guelphs and GhibellinesEdit

In 1204 the streets of Rome were again in flames when the struggle between Pope Innocent III’s family and its rivals, the powerful Orsini family, led to riots in the city. Many ancient buildings were then destroyed by machines used by the rival bands to besiege their enemies in the innumerable towers and strongholds which were a hallmark of the Middle Age Italian towns.

The Torre dei Conti was one of the many towers built by the noble families of Rome to mark their power and defend themselves in the several feuds that marked the city in the Middle Ages. Only the lower third part of Torre dei Conti can be seen today.

The struggle between the Popes and the emperor Frederick II, also king of Naples and Sicily, saw Rome support the Ghibellines. To repay his loyalty, Frederick sent to the commune the Carroccio he had won to the Lombards at the battle of Cortenuova in 1234, and which was exposed in the Campidoglio.

In that year, during another revolt against the Pope, the Romans headed by senator Luca Savelli sacked the Lateran. Curiously, Savelli was the nephew of Pope Honorius III and father of Honorius IV, but in that age family ties often did not determine one’s allegiance.

Rome was never to evolve into an autonomous, stable reign, as happened to other communes like Florence, Siena or Milan. The endless struggles between noble families (Savelli, Orsini, Colonna, Annibaldi), the ambiguous position of the Popes, the haughtiness of a population which never abandoned the dreams of their splendid past but, at the same time, thought only of immediate advantage, and the weakness of the republican institutions always deprived the city of this possibility.

In an attempt to imitate more successful communes, in 1252 the people elected a foreign Senator, the Bolognese Brancaleone degli Andalò. In order to bring peace in the city he suppressed the most powerful nobles (destroying some 140 towers), reorganised the working classes and issued a code of laws inspired by those of northern Italy. Brancaleone was a tough figure, but died in 1258 with almost nothing of his reforms turned into reality. Five years later Charles I of Anjou, then king of Naples, was elected Senator. He entered the city only in 1265, but soon his presence was needed to face Conradin, the Hohenstaufen’s heir who was coming to claim his family’s rights over southern Italy, and left the city. After June 1265 Rome was again a democratic republic, electing Henry of Castile as senator. But Conradin and the Ghibelline party were crushed in the Battle of Tagliacozzo (1268), and therefore Rome fell again in the hands of Charles.

Nicholas III, a member of Orsini family, was elected in 1277 and moved the seat of the Popes from the Lateran to the more defensible Vatican. He also ordered that no foreigner could become senator of Rome. Being a Roman himself, he had himself elected senator by the people. With this move, the city began again to side for the papal party. In 1285 Charles was again Senator, but the Sicilian Vespers reduced his charisma, and the city was thenceforth free from his authority. The next senator was again a Roman, and again a pope, Honorius IV of the Savelli.

Boniface VIII and the Avignon captivityEdit

The successor to Celestine V was a Roman of the Caetani family, Boniface VIII. Entangled in a local feud against the traditional rivals of his family, the Colonna, at the same time he struggled to assure the universal supremacy of the Holy See. In 1300 he launched the first Jubilee and in 1303 founded the first University of Rome.^[67][68] The Jubilee was an important move for Rome, as it further increased its international prestige and, most of all, the city’s economy was boosted by the flow of pilgrims.^[68] Boniface died in 1303 after the humiliation of the Schiaffo di Anagni («Slap of Anagni»), which signalled instead the rule of the King of France over the Papacy and marked another period of decline for Rome.^[68][69]

Boniface’s successor, Clement V, never entered the city, starting the so-called «Avignon captivity», the absence of the Popes from their Roman seat in favour of Avignon, which would last for more than 70 years.^[69][70] This situation brought the independence of the local powers, but these were revealed to be largely unstable; and the lack of the holy revenues caused a deep decay of Rome.^[69][70] For more than a century Rome had no new major buildings. Furthermore, many of the monuments of the city, including the main churches, began to fall into ruin.^[69]

Cola di Rienzo and the Pope’s return to RomeEdit

Cola di Rienzo stormed the Capitoline Hill in 1347 to create a new Roman Republic. Though short-lived, his attempt is recorded by a 19th-century statue near the ramped Cordonata leading to Michelangelo’s Piazza del Campidoglio.

In spite of its decline and the absence of the Pope, Rome had not lost its spiritual prestige: in 1341 the famous poet Petrarca came to the city to be crowned as Poet laureate in Capitoline Hill. Noblemen and poor people at one time demanded with one voice the return of the Pope. Among the many ambassadors that in this period took their way to Avignon, emerged the bizarre but eloquent figure of Cola di Rienzo. As his personal power among the people increased by time, on 20 May 1347 he conquered the Capitoline at the head of an enthusiastic crowd. The period of his power, though very short-lived, aspired to the prestige of Ancient Rome. Now in possession of dictatorial powers, he took the title of «tribune», referring to the pleb’s magistracy of the Roman Republic. Cola also considered himself at an equal status of that of the Holy Roman Emperor. On 1 August, he conferred Roman citizenship on all the Italian cities, and even prepared for the election of a Roman emperor of Italy. It was too much: the Pope denounced him as heretic, criminal and pagan, the populace had begun to be disenchanted with him, while the nobles had always hated him. On 15 December, he was forced to flee.

In August 1354, Cola was again a protagonist, when Cardinal Gil Alvarez De Albornoz entrusted him with the role of «senator of Rome» in his program of reassuring the Pope’s rule in the Papal States. In October the tyrannical Cola, who had become again very unpopular for his delirious behaviour and heavy bills, was killed in a riot provoked by the powerful family of the Colonna. In April 1355, Charles IV of Bohemia entered the city for the ritual coronation as Emperor. His visit was very disappointing for the citizens. He had little money, received the crown not from the Pope but from a Cardinal, and moved away after a few days.

With the emperor back in his lands, Albornoz could regain a certain control over the city, while remaining in his safe citadel in Montefiascone, in the Northern Lazio. The senators were chosen directly by the Pope from several cities of Italy, but the city was in fact independent. The Senate council included six judges, five notaries, six marshals, several familiars, twenty knights and twenty armed men. Albornoz had heavily suppressed the traditional aristocratic families, and the «democratic» party felt confident enough to start an aggressive policy. In 1362 Rome declared war on Velletri. This move, however, provoked a civil war. The countryside party hired a condottieri band called «Del Cappello» («Hat»), while the Romans bought the services of German and Hungarian troops, plus a citizen levy of 600 knights and even 22,000 infantry. This was the period in which condottieri bands were active in Italy. Many of the Savelli, Orsini and Annibaldi expelled from Rome became leaders of such military units. The war with Velletri languished, and Rome again gave itself to the new Pope, Urban V, provided Albornoz did not enter the walls.

On 16 October 1367, in reply to the prayers of St Brigid and Petrarca, Urban finally visited for the city. During his presence, Charles IV was again crowned in the city (October 1368). In addition, the Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus came in Rome to beg for a crusade against the Ottoman Empire, but in vain. However, Urban did not like the unhealthy air of the city, and on 5 September 1370 he sailed again to Avignon. His successor, Gregory XI, officially set the date of his return to Rome at May 1372, but again the French cardinals and the King stopped him.

Only on 17 January 1377, Gregory XI could finally reinstate the Holy See in Rome.

Western schism and conflict with MilanEdit

The incoherent behaviour of his successor, the Italian Urban VI, provoked in 1378 the Western Schism, which impeded any true attempt of improving the conditions of the decaying Rome.
The 14th century, with the absence of the popes during the Avignon Papacy, had been a century of neglect and misery for the city of Rome, which dropped to its lowest level of population.
With the return of the papacy to Rome repeatedly postponed because of the bad conditions of the city and the lack of control and security, it was first necessary to strengthen the political and doctrinal aspects of the pontiff.

When in 1377 Gregory XI was in fact returned to Rome, he found a city in anarchy because of the struggles between the nobility and the popular faction, and in which his power was now more formal than real. There followed four decades of instability, characterised by the local power struggle between the commune and the papacy, and internationally by the great Western Schism, at the end of which was elected Pope, Martin V. He restored order, laying the foundations of its rebirth.^[71]

In 1433 the Duke of Milan, Filippo Maria Visconti signed a peace treaty with Florence and Venice. He then sent the condottieri Niccolò Fortebraccio and Francesco Sforza to harass the Papal States, in vengeance for Eugene IV’s support to the two former republics.

Fortebraccio, supported by the Colonna, occupied Tivoli in October 1433 and ravaged Rome’s countryside. Despite the concessions made by Eugene to the Visconti, the Milanese soldiers did not stop their destruction. This led the Romans, on 29 May 1434 to institute a Republican government under the Banderesi. Eugene left the city a few days later, during the night of 4 June.

However, the Banderesi proved incapable of governing the city, and their inadequacies and violence soon deprived them of popular support. The city was therefore returned to Eugene by the army of Giovanni Vitelleschi on 26 October 1434. After the death in mysterious circumstances of Vitelleschi, the city came under the control of Ludovico Scarampo, Patriarch of Aquileia. Eugene returned to Rome on 28 September 1443.

Renaissance RomeEdit

Rome Timeline
Renaissance and early modern Rome
c. 1420s–1519	Rome becomes a centre of the Renaissance. Founding of the new St. Peter’s Basilica. Sistine Chapel.
1527	The Landsknechts sack Rome.
1555	Creation of the Ghetto.
1585–1590	Urban reforms under Pope Sixtus V.
1592–1606	Caravaggio working in Rome.
1600	Giordano Bruno is burned.
1626	The new St. Peter’s Basilica is consecrated.
1638–1667	Baroque era. Bernini and Borromini. Rome has 120,000 inhabitants.
1703	Building of the Port of Ripetta.
1732–1762	Building of the Fontana di Trevi.

The latter half of the 15th century saw the seat of the Italian Renaissance move to Rome from Florence. The Papacy wanted to surpass the grandeur of other Italian cities. To this end the popes created increasingly extravagant churches, bridges, town squares and public spaces, including a new Saint Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, Ponte Sisto (the first bridge to be built across the Tiber since antiquity), and Piazza Navona. The Popes were also patrons of the arts engaging such artists as Michelangelo, Perugino, Raphael, Ghirlandaio, Luca Signorelli, Botticelli, and Cosimo Rosselli.

Under Pope Nicholas V, who became Pontiff on 19 March 1447, the Renaissance can be said to have begun in Rome, heralding a period in which the city became the centre of Humanism. He was the first Pope to embellish the Roman court with scholars and artists, including Lorenzo Valla and Vespasiano da Bisticci.

On 4 September 1449 Nicholas proclaimed a Jubilee for the following year, which saw a great influx of pilgrims from all Europe. The crowd was so large that in December, on Ponte Sant’Angelo, some 200 people died, crushed underfoot or drowned in the River Tiber. Later that year the Plague reappeared in the city, and Nicholas fled.

However Nicholas brought stability to the temporal power of the Papacy, a power in which the Emperor was to have no part at all. In this way, the coronation and the marriage of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor on 16 March 1452, was more a civil ceremony. The Papacy now controlled Rome with a strong hand. A plot by Stefano Porcari, whose aim was the restoration of the Republic, was ruthlessly suppressed on January 1453. Porcari was hanged together with the other plotters, Francesco Gabadeo, Pietro de Monterotondo, Battista Sciarra and Angiolo Ronconi, but the Pope gained a treacherous reputation, as when the execution was beginning he was too drunk to confirm the grace he had previously given to Sciarra and Ronconi.

Nicholas was also actively involved in Rome’s urban renewal, in collaboration with Leon Battista Alberti, including the construction of a new St Peter’s Basilica.

Nicholas’ successor Calixtus III neglected Nicholas’s cultural policies, instead devoting himself to his greatest passion, his nephews. The Tuscan Pius II, who took the reins after his death in 1458, was a great Humanist, but did little for Rome. During his reign Lorenzo Valla demonstrated that the Donation of Constantine was a forgery. Pius was the first Pope to use guns, in campaign against the rebel barons Savelli in the neighbourhood of Rome, in 1461. One year later the bringing to Rome of the head of the Apostle St. Andrew produced a great number of pilgrims. The reign of Pope Paul II (1464–1471) was notable only for the reintroduction of the Carnival, which was to become a very popular feast in Rome in the following centuries. In the same year (1468) a plot against the Pope was uncovered, organised by the intellectuals of the Roman Academy founded by Pomponio Leto. The conspirators were sent to Castel Sant’Angelo.

More important by far was the Pontificate of Sixtus IV, considered the first Pope-King of Rome. In order to favour his relative Girolamo Riario, he promoted the unsuccessful Congiura dei Pazzi against the Medici of Florence (26 April 1478) and in Rome fought the Colonna and the Orsini. The personal politics of intrigue and war required much money, but in spite of this Sixtus was a true patron of art in the manner of Nicholas V. He reopened the Academy and reorganised the Collegio degli Abbreviatori, and in 1471 began the construction of the Vatican Library, whose first curator was Platina. The Library was officially founded on 15 June 1475. He restored several churches, including Santa Maria del Popolo, the Aqua Virgo and the Hospital of the Holy Spirit; paved several streets and also built a famous bridge over the Tiber river, which still bears his name. His main building project was the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. Its decoration called on some of the most renowned artists of the age, including Mino da Fiesole, Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, Luca Signorelli and Pinturicchio, and in the 16th century Michelangelo decorated the ceiling with his famous masterpiece, contributing to what became one of the most famous monuments of the world. Sixtus died on 12 August 1484.

Chaos, corruption and nepotism appeared in Rome under the reign of his successors, Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503). During the vacation period between the death of the former and the election of the latter there were 220 murders in the city. Alexander had to face Charles VIII of France, who invaded Italy in 1494 and entered Rome on 31 December of that year. The Pope could only barricade himself into Castel Sant’Angelo, which had been turned into a true fortress by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger. In the end, the skilful Alexander was able to gain the support of the king, assigning his son Cesare Borgia as military counsellor for the subsequent invasion of the Kingdom of Naples. Rome was safe and, as the King directed himself southwards, the Pope again changed his position, joining the anti-French League of the Italian States which finally compelled Charles to flee to France.

The most nepotist Pope of all, Alexander, favoured his ruthless son Cesare, creating for him a personal Duchy out of territories of the Papal States, and banning from Rome Cesare’s most relentless enemy, the Orsini family. In 1500 the city hosted a new Jubilee, but grew ever more unsafe as, especially at night, the streets were controlled by bands of lawless «bravi». Cesare himself assassinated Alfonso of Bisceglie; as well as, presumably, the Pope’s son, Giovanni of Gandia.

The Renaissance had a great impact on Rome’s appearance, with works like the Pietà by Michelangelo and the frescoes of the Borgia Apartment, all made during Innocent’s reign. Rome reached the highest point of splendour under Pope Julius II (1503–1513) and his successors Leo X and Clement VII, both members of the Medici family. During this twenty-year period Rome became the greatest centre of art in the world. The old St. Peter’s Basilica was demolished and a new one begun. The city hosted artists like Bramante, who built the Temple of San Pietro in Montorio and planned a great project to renovate the Vatican; Raphael, who in Rome became the most famous painter in Italy, creating frescos in the Cappella Niccolina, the Villa Farnesina, the Raphael’s Rooms, and many other famous paintings. Michelangelo began the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and executed the famous statue of Moses for the tomb of Julius. Rome lost in part its religious character, becoming increasingly a true Renaissance city, with a great number of popular feasts, horse races, parties, intrigues and licentious episodes. Its economy was prosperous, with the presence of several Tuscan bankers, including Agostino Chigi, a friend of Raphael and a patron of the arts. Despite his premature death, and to his eternal credit, Raphael also promoted for the first time the preservation of the ancient ruins.

Sack of Rome (1527)Edit

In 1527 the ambiguous policy followed by the second Medici Pope, Pope Clement VII, resulted in the dramatic sack of the city by the unruly Imperial troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. After the execution of some 1,000 defenders, the pillage began.^[72][73] The city was devastated for several days, many of the citizens were killed or took shelter outside the walls. Of 189 Swiss Guards on duty only 42 survived.^[72][74] The Pope himself was imprisoned for months in Castel Sant’Angelo. The sack marked the end of one of the most splendid eras of modern Rome.^[72][75]

The 1525’s Jubilee resulted in a farce, as Martin Luther’s claims had spread criticism and even hatred against the Pope’s greed throughout Europe. The prestige of Rome was then challenged by the defections of the churches of Germany and England. Pope Paul III (1534–1549) tried to recover the situation by summoning the Council of Trento, although being, at the same time, the most nepotist Pope of all. He even separated Parma and Piacenza from the Papal States to create an independent duchy for his son Pier Luigi.^[72] He continued the patronage of art supporting the Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, asking him to renovate the Campidoglio and the ongoing construction of St. Peter’s. After the shock of the sack, he also called the brilliant architect Giuliano da Sangallo the Younger to strengthen the walls of the Leonine City.^[72]

The need for renovation in the religious customs became evident in the vacancy period after Paulus’ death, when the streets of Rome became seat of masked carousels which satirised the Cardinals attending the conclave. His two immediate successors were feeble figures who did nothing to escape the actual Spanish suzerainty over Rome.^[72]

Counter-ReformationEdit

Pope Paul IV, elected in 1555, was a member of the anti-Spanish party in the Italian War of 1551–59, but his policy resulted in the Neapolitan troops of the viceroy again besieging Rome in 1556.
Paul sued for peace, but had to accept the supremacy of Philip II of Spain.^[72] He was one of the most hated Popes of all, and, after his death the raging populace burned the Holy Inquisition’s palace and destroyed his marble statue on the Campidoglio.^[76][77]

Pope Paul’s Counter-Reformation views are well shown by his order that a central area of Rome, around the Porticus Octaviae, be delimited, creating the famous Roman Ghetto, the very constricted area in which the city’s Jews were forced to live in seclusion. They had to remain in the rione Sant’Angelo and locked in at night. The Pope decreed that Jews should wear a distinctive sign, yellow hats for men^[78] and veils or shawls for women. Jewish ghettos existed in Europe for the next 315 years.

The Counter-Reformation gained pace under his successors, the milder Pope Pius IV and the severe Pope Pius V. The former was a nepotist lover of court splendours, but more severe customs arrived anyway through the ideas of his advisor, the prelate Charles Borromeo, who was to become one of the most popular figures among the Rome’s people. Pius V and Borromeo gave Rome a true Counter-Reformation character. All pomp was removed from the court, the jokers were expelled, and cardinals and bishops were obliged to live in the city. Blasphemy and concubinage were severely punished. Prostitutes were expelled or confined in a reserved district. The Inquisition’s power in the city was reasserted, and its palace rebuilt with an increased space for prisons. During this period Michelangelo opened the Porta Pia and turned the Baths of Diocletian into the spectacular basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri, where Pius IV was buried. The expression of mannerism was meticulously widespread with Vignola, for civil and religious buildings in Rome and throughout the Papal States, his masterpieces, even before the Church of the Gesù (1568), became villas such as Villa Giulia and Villa Farnese.^[79]

The pontificate of his successor, Gregory XIII, was considered a failure. As he tried to use milder measures than those of St. Pius, the worst element of the Roman population felt free to scourge again the streets. The French writer and philosopher Montaigne maintained that «life and goods were never as unsure as at the time of Gregorius XIII, perhaps», and that a confraternity even held same-sex marriage in the church of San Giovanni a Porta Latina. The courtesans repressed by Pius had now returned.

Sixtus V was of very different temper. Although short (1585–1590), his reign however remembered as one of the most effective in the modern Rome’s history. He was even tougher than Pius V, and was variously nicknamed castigamatti («punisher of the mad»), papa di ferro («Iron Pope»), dictator and even, ironically, demon, since no other Pope before him pursued with such a determination the reform of the church and the customs. Sixtus profoundly reorganised the Papal States’ administration, and cleaned the streets of Rome of thugs, procurers, dueling and so on. Even the nobles and Cardinals could not consider themselves free from the arms of Sixtus’ police. The money from taxes, which were not now wasted in corruption, permitted an ambitious building program. Some ancient aqueducts were restored, and new one, the Acquedotto Felice (from Sixtus’ name, Felice Peretti) was constructed.
New houses were built in the desolate district of Esquilino, Viminale and Quirinale, while old houses in the centre of the city were destroyed to open new, larger streets.
Sixtus’s principal aim was to make Rome a better destination for pilgrimages, and the new streets were intended to permit a better access to the major Basilicas. Old obelisks were moved or erected to embellish St. John in Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore and St. Peter, as well as Piazza del Popolo, in front of Santa Maria del Popolo.

Baroque periodEdit

Map of Rome from Topographia Italiae, published by Matthaeus Merian’s heirs in 1688.

In the 18th century, the Papacy reached the peak of its temporal power, the Papal States including most of Central Italy, including Latium, Umbria, Marche and the Legations of Ravenna, Ferrara and Bologna extending north into the Romagna, as well as the small enclaves of Benevento and Pontecorvo in southern Italy and the larger Comtat Venaissin around Avignon in southern France.

Baroque and Rococo architecture flourished in Rome, with several famous works being completed. Work on the Trevi Fountain began in 1732 and was completed in 1762. The Spanish Steps were designed in 1735. Pope Clement XIII’s tomb by Canova was completed in 1792.

The arts also flourished throughout this period. Palazzo Nuovo became the world’s first public museum in 1734 and some of the most famous views of Rome in the 18th century were etched by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. His grand vision of classic Rome inspired many to visit the city and examine the ruins themselves.

Modern historyEdit

Rome Timeline
Modern Rome
1798–1799 and 1800–1814	French occupation.
1848–1849	Roman Republic with Mazzini and Garibaldi.
1870	Rome conquered by Italian troops.
1874–1885	Building of the Termini Station and founding of the Vittoriano.
1922	March on Rome.
1929	Lateran Pacts.
1932–1939	Building of Cinecittà.
1943	Bombing of Rome.
1960	Rome is site of the Summer Olympics.
1975–1985	Years of terrorism. Death of Aldo Moro. Pope John Paul II is shot.
1990	Rome is one of the locations for the 1990 FIFA World Cup
2000	Rome hosts the Jubilee.

Italian unificationEdit

In 1870, the Pope’s holdings were left in an uncertain situation when Rome itself was annexed by the Piedmont-led forces which had united the rest of Italy, after a nominal resistance by the papal forces. Between 1861 and 1929 the status of the Pope was referred to as the «Roman Question». The successive Popes were undisturbed in their palace, and certain prerogatives recognized by the Law of Guarantees, including the right to send and receive ambassadors. But the Popes did not recognise the Italian king’s right to rule in Rome, and they refused to leave the Vatican compound until the dispute was resolved in 1929. Other states continued to maintain international recognition of the Holy See as a sovereign entity.

The rule of the Popes was interrupted by the short-lived Roman Republic (1798), which was under the influence of the French Revolution. During Napoleon’s reign, Rome was annexed into his empire and was technically part of France. After the fall of Napoleon’s Empire, the Papal States were restored by the Congress of Vienna, with the exception of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, which remained part of France.

Another Roman Republic arose in 1849, within the framework of revolutions of 1848. Two of the most influential figures of the Italian unification, Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, fought for the short-lived republic. However, the actions of these two great men would not have resulted in unification without the sly leadership of Camillo Benso di Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia.

Even among those who wanted to see the peninsula unified into one country, different groups could not agree on what form a unified state would take. Vincenzo Gioberti, a Piedmontese priest, had suggested a confederation of Italian states under rulership of the Pope. His book, Of the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians, was published in 1843 and created a link between the Papacy and the Risorgimento. Many leading revolutionaries wanted a republic, but eventually it was a king and his chief minister who had the power to unite the Italian states as a monarchy.

In his attempt to unify Northern Italy under the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, Cavour enacted major industrialisation of the country in order to become the economic leader of Italy. In doing so, he believed that the other states would naturally come under his rule. Next, he sent the army of Piedmont to the Crimean War to join the French and British. Making minor successes in the war against Russia, cordial relations were established between Piedmont-Sardinia and France; a relationship to be exploited in the future.

The return of Pope Pius IX in Rome, with help of French troops, marked the exclusion of Rome from the unification process that was embodied in the Second Italian Independence War and the Mille expedition, after which all the Italian peninsula, except Rome and Venetia, would be unified under the House of Savoy. Garibaldi first attacked Sicily, luckily under the guise of passing British ships and landing with little resistance.

Taking the island, Garibaldi’s actions were publicly denounced by Cavour but secretly encouraged via weapons supplements. This policy or real-politik, where the ends justified the means of unification, was continued as Garibaldi faced crossing the Strait of Messina. Cavour privately asked the British navy to allow Garibaldi’s troops across the sea while publicly he again, denounced Garibaldi’s actions. The maneuver was a success and Garibaldi’s military genius carried him on to take the entire kingdom.

Cavour then moved to take Venetia and Lombardy via an alliance with France. The Italians and French together would attack the two states with France getting the city of Nice and the region of Savoy in return. However, the French pulled out of their agreement soon after, enraging Cavour who subsequently resigned. Only Lombardy had been captured at the time.

With French units still stationed at Rome however, Cavour, being called back to office, foresaw a possibility of Garibaldi attacking the Papal States and accidentally disrupting French-Italian relations. The army of Sardinia was therefore mobilised to attack the Papal States but remain outside Rome.

In the Austro-Prussian war however, a deal was made between the new Italy and Prussia, where Italy would attack Austria in return for the region of Venetia. The war was a major success for the Prussians (though the Italians did not win a single battle), and the northern front of Italy was complete.

In July 1870, the Franco-Prussian War started, and French Emperor Napoleon III could no longer protect the Papal States. Soon after, the Italian army under general Raffaele Cadorna entered Rome on 20 September, after a cannonade of three hours, through Porta Pia (see capture of Rome). The Leonine City was occupied the following day, a provisional Government Joint created by Cadorna out of local noblemen to avoid the rise of the radical factions. Rome and Latium were annexed to the Kingdom of Italy after a plebiscite held on 2 October. 133,681 voted for annexion, 1,507 opposed (in Rome itself, there were 40,785 «Yes» and 57 «No»).

When Rome was eventually taken, the Italian government reportedly intended to let Pope Pius IX keep the part of Rome, west of the Tiber, known as the Leonine City as a small remaining Papal State, but Pius IX rejected the offer because acceptance would have been an implied endorsement of the legitimacy of the Italian kingdom’s rule over his former domain.^[80] One week after entering Rome, the Italian troops had taken the entire city save for the Apostolic Palace; the inhabitants of the city then voted to join Italy.^[81] On 1 July 1871, Rome became the official capital of united Italy and from then until June 1929 the popes had no temporal power.

The pope referred to himself during this time as the «prisoner of the Vatican», although he was not actually restrained from coming and going. Pius IX took steps to ensure self-sufficiency, such as the construction of the Vatican Pharmacy. Italian nobility who owed their titles to the pope rather than the royal family became known as the Black Nobility during this period because of their purported mourning.

Kingdom of ItalyEdit

Rome became the focus of hopes of Italian reunification when the rest of Italy was reunited under the Kingdom of Italy with a temporary capital at Florence. In 1861, Rome was declared the capital of Italy even though it was still under the control of the Pope. During the 1860s, the last vestiges of the Papal States were under the French protection of Napoleon III. And it was only when this was lifted in 1870, owing to the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, that Italian troops were able to capture Rome entering the city through a breach near Porta Pia. Afterwards, Pope Pius IX declared himself as prisoner in the Vatican, and in 1871 the capital of Italy was moved from Florence to Rome.^[82]

Soon after World War I, Rome witnessed the rise to power of Italian Fascism guided by Benito Mussolini, who, at the request of King Victor Emmanuel III, marched on the city in 1922, eventually declaring a new Empire and allying Italy with Nazi Germany.^[83]

The interwar period saw a rapid growth in the city’s population, that surpassed 1,000,000 inhabitants.^[84]

This Roman Question was finally resolved on 11 February 1929 between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy. The Lateran Treaty was signed by Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri for Pope Pius XI. The treaty, which became effective on 7 June 1929, and the Concordat established the independent State of the Vatican City and granted Roman Catholicism special status in Italy.

Propaganda inscription, «the work of the liberators» (opera dei liberatori) on wall of a bombed building, Rome, 1944

During World War II, Rome suffered few bombings (notably at San Lorenzo) and relatively little damage because none of the nations involved wanted to endanger the life of Pope Pius XII in Vatican City. There were some bitter fights between Italian and German troops in the south of the city and even in sight of the Colosseum, shortly after the armistice between Italy and Allied armed forces.^{[citation needed]} On 4 June 1944 Rome became the first capital city of an Axis nation to fall to the Allies, but was relatively undamaged because on 14 August 1943, a day after the last allied bombing, the Germans declared it an «open city» and withdrew, meaning that the Allies did not have to fight their way in.^[85][86]

In practice Italy made no attempt to interfere with the Holy See within the Vatican walls. However, they confiscated church property in many other places, including the Quirinal Palace, formerly the pope’s official residence. Pope Pius IX (1846–78), the last ruler of the Papal States, claimed that after Rome was annexed he was a «Prisoner in the Vatican».

Vatican City officially pursued a policy of neutrality during World War II, under the leadership of Pope Pius XII. Although the city of Rome was occupied by Germany from 1943 and the Allies from 1944, Vatican City itself was not occupied. One of Pius XII’s main diplomatic priorities was to prevent the bombing of Rome; so sensitive was the pontiff that he protested even the British air dropping of pamphlets over Rome, claiming that the few landing within the city-state violated the Vatican’s neutrality.^[87] Before the American entry into the war, there was little impetus for such a bombing, as the British saw little strategic value in it.^[88]

After the American entry, the US opposed such a bombing, fearful of offending Catholic members of its military forces, while the British then supported it.^[89] Pius XII similarly advocated for the declaration of Rome as an «open city», but this occurred only on 14 August 1943, after Rome had already been bombed twice.^[90] Although the Italians consulted the Vatican on the wording of the open city declaration, the impetus for the change had little to do with the Vatican.^[91]

Capital of the Italian RepublicEdit

Rome grew substantially after the war, as one of the driving forces behind the «Italian economic miracle» of post-war reconstruction and modernisation. It became a fashionable city in the 1950s and early 1960s, the years of «la dolce vita» («the sweet life»), with popular classic films such as Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Roman Holiday and La Dolce Vita^[92] being filmed in the city’s iconic Cinecittà Studios.

A new rising trend in population continued until the mid-1980s, when the commune had more than 2.8 million residents; after that, population started to slowly decline as more residents moved to nearby suburbs. The Rome metropolitan area has about 4.4 million inhabitants as of 2015.

Being the capital city of Italy, all the principal institutions of the nation are located there, including the President; the seat of government with its single Ministeri; the Parliament; the main judicial Courts, and the diplomatic representatives for both Italy and the Vatican City.
A number of notable international cultural, scientific and humanitarian institutions are located in Rome, including the German Archaeological Institute, and the FAO.

Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics, using many ancient sites such as the Villa Borghese and the Thermae of Caracalla as venues.^[93] For the Olympic Games new structures were created: the Olympic Stadium (which was itself enlarged and renovated to host qualifying rounds and the final match of the 1990 FIFA football World Cup); the Villaggio Olimpico (Olympic Village), created to house the athletes, was later redeveloped as a residential district.

Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport opened in 1961.
Tourism brings an average of 7–10 million visitors a year. Rome is the 3rd most visited city in the European Union, after London and Paris.
The Colosseum (4 million tourists) and the Vatican Museums (4.2 million tourists) are the 39th and 37th (respectively) most visited places in the world, according to a 2009 study.^[94] Many of the ancient monuments of Rome were restored by the Italian state and by the Vatican for the 2000 Jubilee.

Historical city centerEdit

Today’s Rome is a modern metropolis, yet it reflects the stratification of the epochs of its long history. The historical centre, identified as those parts within the limits of the ancient Imperial walls, contains archaeological remains from Ancient Rome. These are continuously being excavated and opened to the public, such as the Colosseum; the Roman Forum, and the Catacombs. There are areas with remains from Medieval times. There are palaces and artistic treasures from the Renaissance; fountains, churches and palaces from Baroque times. There is art and architecture from the Art Nouveau, Neoclassic, Modernist and Rationalist periods. There are museums, such as the Musei Capitolini, the Vatican Museums, Galleria Borghese.^{[citation needed]}

Parts of the historical centre were reorganised after the 19th-century Italian Unification (1880–1910 – Roma Umbertina). The increase of population caused by the centralisation of the Italian state necessitated new infrastructure and accommodation. There were also substantial alterations and adaptations made during the Fascist period, for example, the creation of the Via dei Fori Imperiali; and the Via della Conciliazione in front of the Vatican. These projects involved the destruction of a large part of the old Borgo neighbourhood. New quartieri were founded, such as EUR (Esposizione Universale Roma), San Basilio, Garbatella, Cinecittà, Trullo and Quarticciolo. So great was the influx of people that on the coast, there was restructuring of Ostia and the inclusion of bordering villages such as Labaro, Osteria del Curato, Quarto Miglio, Capannelle, Pisana, Torrevecchia, Ottavia, Casalotti.^{[citation needed]}

See alsoEdit

• Roman technology
• Timeline of the city of Rome
• Timeline of Roman history

ReferencesEdit

NotesEdit

1. ^ Procopius, Gothic War, III.xxii. «In Rome he suffered nothing human to remain, leaving it altogether, in every part, a perfect desert.»
2. ^ Heiken, G., Funiciello, R. and De Rita, D. (2005), The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City. Princeton University Press.
3. ^ Potter, D.S. (2009). Rome in the Ancient World: From Romulus to Justinian. London: Thames & Hudson. p. 10. ISBN 9780500251522.
4. ^ Hooper, John (13 April 2014). «Archaeologists’ findings may prove Rome a century older than thought». The Guardian.
5. ^ «Science: Rome: Older Than Ever». Time. 21 November 1960.
6. ^ URBANUS, JASON M. «A Brief Glimpse into Early Rome – Archaeology Magazine». archaeology.org.
7. ^ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita I, 7
8. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:8
9. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:9–13
10. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:8, 13
11. ^ Cf. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his «The Social Contract», Book IV, Chapter IV, written in 1762, where he writes in a footnote that the word for Rome is Greek in origin and means force. «There are writers who say that the name ‘Rome’ is derived from ‘Romulus’. It is in fact Greek and means force.«
12. ^ This has been deduced from the name of a figure painted in the François Tomb at Vulci, inscribed in Etruscan Cneve Tarchunies Rumach, interpreted as Gnaeus Tarquinius of Rome. http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/francois.html
13. ^ Ismarmed.com (2011). «History of Rome (Italy)». ismarmed.com.
14. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus. «Book 1.11». Roman Antiquities. But the most learned of the Roman historians, among whom is Porcius Cato, who compiled with the greatest care the «origins» of the Italian cities, Gaius Sempronius and a great many others, say that they [Aborigines] were Greeks, part of those who once dwelt in Achaia, and that they migrated many generations before the Trojan war. But they do not go on to indicate either the Greek tribe to which they belonged or the city from which they removed, or the date or the leader of the colony, or as the result of what turns of fortune they left their mother country; and although they are following a Greek legend, they have cited no Greek historian as their authority. It is uncertain, therefore, what the truth of the matter is.
15. ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus. «Book I.14». Roman Antiquities. Twenty-four stades from the afore-mentioned city stood Lista, the mother-city of the Aborigines, which at a still earlier time the Sabines had captured by a surprise attack, having set out against it from Amiternum by night.
16. ^ Larissa Bonfante:Etruscan Inscriptions and Etruscan Religion in The Religion of the Etruscans – University of Texas Press 2006, page 9
17. ^ Guerber, H. A. (2011). «Heritage History eBook Reader». heritage-history.com. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011.
18. ^ Roman-Empire.net (2009). «Religion». roman-empire.net. Archived from the original on 12 May 2016.
19. ^ The Architecture of Roman Temples: The Republic to the Middle Empire, p. 6, at Google Books
20. ^ Asimov, Isaac. Asimov’s Chronology of the World. New York: HarperCollins, 1991. p. 69.
21. ^ T.J. Cornell, The beginnings of Rome, 1990, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415015967
22. ^ Hooker, Richard (1999). «Rome: The Conquest of the Hellenistic Empires». public.wsu.edu. Archived from the original on 26 June 2011.
23. ^ Ellis, «The Celts: A History.» pp. 61–64. Running Press, London, 2004.
24. ^ Plutarch, Lives:Wikisource Life of Camillus.
25. ^ UNVR.com (2011). «Roman Timeline of the 4th Century BC». unrv.com.
26. ^ Abbott, 28
27. ^ Fields 2007, p. 15.
28. ^ Plutarch Life of Crassus 8
29. ^ Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, «Servus», p. 1038; details the legal and military means by which people were enslaved.
30. ^ BBC History (2011). «BBC – History – The Fall of the Roman Republic». bbc.co.uk.
31. ^ The Roman Republic was never restored; but nor was it abolished, so the event which signaled its transition to Roman Empire is a matter of interpretation. Historians have variously proposed the appointment of Julius Caesar as perpetual dictator in 44 BC, the defeat of Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, and the Roman Senate’s grant of extraordinary powers to Octavian (Augustus) under the first settlement in 27 BC, as candidates for the defining pivotal event ending the Republic.
32. ^ Rodgers, Nigel. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire, Lorenz Books, ISBN 978-0-7548-1911-0 (p.281)
33. ^ Aldrete, Gregory S. (2004). Daily life in the Roman city: Rome, Pompeii and Ostia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. p. 22. ISBN 0-313-33174-X. Retrieved 8 July 2011. rome first city with one million inhabitants -.com .edu.
34. ^ Tacitus, AnnalsXV.40
35. ^ Fordham.edu (2009). «Ancient History Sourcebook: Dio Cassius: Nero and the Great Fire 64 AD». fordham.edu.
36. ^ Oates, W. J. (09, 30 June). Population of Rome. Retrieved 11, 16 March, from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/CP/29/2/Population_of_Rome*.html
37. ^ «‘Plague’ killed Roman grave dead». BBC News. 30 April 2008.
38. ^ Graeme Clarke, «Third-Century Christianity,» in Cambridge Ancient History: The Crisis of Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2005), vol. 12, p. 616; W.H.C. Frend, «Persecutions: Genesis and Legacy,» Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine (Cambridge University Press, 2006), vol. 1, p. 510. See also: Timothy D. Barnes, «Legislation Against the Christians,» Journal of Roman Studies 58 (1968) 32–50; G.E.M de Sainte-Croix, «Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?» Past & Present 26 (1963) 6–38; Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. lviii–lxii; and A.N. Sherwin-White, «The Early Persecutions and Roman Law Again», Journal of Theological Studies 3.2 (1952) 199–213.
39. ^ «Pliny the Younger on Christ». Mesacc.edu. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
40. ^ Suetonius, Life of Nero 16.2: afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae.
41. ^ Tacitus, Annals XV.44
42. ^ Routery, Michael (1997) The First Missionary War. The Church take over of the Roman Empire, Ch. 4, The Serapeum of Alexandria Archived 31 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine
43. ^ History Stack (2011). «455 Sack of Rome – historystack». historystack.posterous.com.
44. ^ Encyclopaedia2 (2011). «Alaric, King of the Visigoths definition of Alaric, King of the Visigoths in the Free Online Encyclopedia.». encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com.
45. ^ St Jerome, Letter CXXVII. To Principia, s:Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume VI/The Letters of St. Jerome/Letter 127 paragraph 12.
46. ^ Arnold HM Jones The Decline of the Ancient World, Lonmans, Green and Co. Ltd., London 1966
47. ^ Brown, Thomas; Holmes, George (1988). The Oxford History of Medieval Europe. Great Britain: Oxford University Press. p. 25.
48. ^ Boorsch, Suzanne (Winter 1982–1983). «The Building of the Vatican: The Papacy and Architecture». The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin. 40 (3): 4–8.
49. ^ ^{a b} Bury, J. B. (2011). «J. B. Bury: History of the Later Roman Empire,§4 • Vol. I Chap. XII». penelope.uchicago.edu.
50. ^ Morton, H. V. (1 April 2009). A Traveller in Rome. ISBN 978-0786730704.
51. ^ P. Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (London 1993), p. 97.
52. ^ Richard Krautheimer, Rome, Profile of a City 312–1308, 2000 pp. 62–64 ISBN 0-691-04961-0
53. ^ Krautheimer, p. 90
54. ^ Catholic Online (2011). «Pope Saint Martin I – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online». catholic.org.
55. ^ Catholic Encyclopaedia (2009). «CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPAEDIA: Pope Saint Martin I». newadvent.org.
56. ^ Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., Source Book for Mediæval History (New York: Scribners, 1905; reprint AMS Press, 1971).
57. ^ Third Millennium Library (2010). «THE LAWS OF LIUTPRAND». third-millennium-library.com. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011.
58. ^ Third Millennium Library (2010). «THE SITUATION IN THE TIME OF KING LIUTPRAND». third-millennium-library.com. Archived from the original on 5 October 2011.
59. ^ from Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), p. 102
60. ^ «Medieval Sourcebook: Einhard: The Life of Charlemagne». Fordham.edu. Retrieved 23 July 2015.
61. ^ «Medieval Sourcebook: The Donation of Constantine». Fordham.edu. Retrieved 22 December 2008.
62. ^ In many manuscripts, including the oldest one, which dates from the 9th century, the document bears the title Constitutum domini Constantini imperatoris.Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). «Donation of Constantine» . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
63. ^ Wilkes, Donald E. Jr. (2011). «The Cadaver Synod: Strangest Trial in History». digitalcommons.law.uga.edu.
64. ^ «Nor was he Sergius III content with thus dishonouring the dead Pope Formosus, but he drags his carcass again out of the grave, beheads it as if it had been alive, and then throws it into the Tiber, as unworthy the honour of human burial.» Platina, Bartolomeo. The Lives of the Popes From The Time of Our Saviour Jesus Christ to the Accession of Gregory VII. Vol. I. London: Griffith Farran & Co. p. 243. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
65. ^ Brusher, Joseph (1959). «Sergius III». Popes Through the Ages. Neff-Kane. Archived from the original on 12 January 2008.
66. ^ Milman, Henry Hart (1867). History of Latin Christianity. Vol. III (4th ed.). London: John Murray. pp. 287–290.
67. ^ Sapienza University of Rome (2011). «Sapienza > About us». www2.uniroma1.it.
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69. ^ ^{a b c d} ChristianChronicler.com (2006). «THE AVIGNON PAPACY». christianchronicler.com.
70. ^ ^{a b} Morris, Colin, The papal monarchy: the Western church from 1050 to 1250 , (Oxford University Press, 2001), 271.
71. ^ Ludovico Gatto, History of Rome in the Middle Ages, Rome, Newton & Compton, 1999. ISBN 88-8289-273-5
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74. ^ Fraser, Christian (22 January 2006). «Europe | Pope’s guards celebrate 500 years». BBC News.
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79. ^ Tantillo 2017.
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BibliographyEdit

• Beard, Mary (2015). SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome. New York & London: Liveright Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87140-423-7.
• Bloch, Raymond (1969). The ancient civilization of the Etruscans. New York: Cowles Book.
• Boak, Arthur Edward Romilly (1921). A history of Rome to 565 A. D. New York: Macmillan.
• Bonfante, Larissa, ed. (1986). Etruscan Life and Afterlife: a Handbook of Etruscan Studies. Warminster: Aris and Phillips.
• Bonfante, Larissa (1990). Etruscan. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07118-2.
• Bonfante, Larissa (2006). Etruscan Inscriptions and Etruscan Religion in The Religion of the Etruscans. Austin: University of Texas Press.
• Bonfante, G.; L. Bonfante (2002). The Etruscan Language. An Introduction. Manchester University Press.
• Bury, J B (2009). History of the Later Roman Empire: From the Death of Theodosius I. BiblioLife. ISBN 978-1-113-20104-1.
• Döge, F.U. (2004) «Die militärische und innenpolitische Entwicklung in Italien 1943–1944», Chapter 11, in:Pro- und antifaschistischer Neorealismus. PhD Thesis, Free University, Berlin. 960 p. [in German]
• Ekonomou, Andrew J. 2007. Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes: Eastern influences on Rome and the papacy from Gregory the Great to Zacharias, A.D. 590–752. Lexington Books.
• Gregorovius, Ferdinand. History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages.
• Fields, Nic (2007). The Roman Army of the Punic Wars 264–146 BC. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84603-145-8.
• Theodor Mommsen The History of Rome, Books I, II, III, IV, V.
• Frost Abbott, Frank (1911). A history and description of Roman political institutions. Harvard Univ. Press. ISBN 0-543-92749-0.
• Kertzer, David (2004). Prisoner of the Vatican. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-618-22442-4.

AttributionEdit

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). «Rome § ANCIENT HISTORY …» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 615–684.

• The History of Rome, Book I at Project Gutenberg

• The History of Rome, Book II at Project Gutenberg

• The History of Rome, Book III at Project Gutenberg

• The History of Rome, Book IV at Project Gutenberg

• The History of Rome, Book V at Project Gutenberg
• Römische Geschichte, in German

Further readingEdit

• Thomas W. Africa (1991). The immense majesty: a history of Rome and the Roman Empire. Harlan Davidson. ISBN 978-0-88295-874-3. online edition
• Roloff Beny; Peter Gunn (1981). The churches of Rome. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-43447-2.
• Duncan, Mike. «The History of Rome». Retrieved 13 February 2016.
• Gary Forsythe (2005). A critical history of early Rome: from prehistory to the first Punic War. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22651-7.
• Tenney Frank (2006). An Economic History of Rome. Cosimo, Inc. ISBN 978-1-59605-647-3. online edition
• Michael Grant (1987). The world of Rome. Meridian. ISBN 978-0-452-00849-6. online edition; excerpt and text search
• Grant, Michael. History of Rome (1997), good survey
• Grout, James. «Encyclopaedia Romana». James Eason. University of Chicago.
• Christopher Hibbert (1987). Rome: the biography of a city. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-007078-1. (1985). 386 pp. good introduction
• Jenkyns, Richard; The Legacy of Rome: A New Appraisal (1992) online edition
• H. H. Scullard (1980). A History of the Roman World, 753 to 146 BC. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-30504-4. (1961), standard scholarly history online edition
• Scullard, H. H. From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68 (1968), standard scholarly history online edition

Imperial RomeEdit

• Matthew Bunson (2002). Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-4562-4. (2002) 636pp, at Google Books
• J. B. Campbell (2002). War and society in imperial Rome, 31 BC-AD 284. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-27881-2. (2002) online edition
• Harvard University. Library (1975). Ancient history: classification schedule, classified listing by call number, chronological listing, author and title listing. Harvard University Library : distributed by Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-03312-2. (1951) online edition
• Walter A. Goffart (2006). Barbarian tides: the migration age and the later Roman Empire. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-3939-3. Volume 6, Issue 3, Pages 855–883 Online at Wiley-Interscience; historiography
• Adrian Keith Goldsworthy (2009). How Rome fell: death of a superpower. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13719-4. (2009), 560pp; by leading scholar excerpt and text search
• Grant, Michael. The Roman Emperors: A Biographical Guide to the Rulers of Imperial Rome 31 B.C.-A.D. 476 (1997)
• Heather, Peter. The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (2006) 572pp
• Potter, David. The Roman Empire at Bay: AD 180–395 (2004). online edition
• Rodgers, Nigel. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire: A complete history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire (2008)
• Rostovtzeff, M. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire (2 vol 1957); famous classic vol 2 online
• Starr; Chester G. The Emergence of Rome as Ruler of the Western World (1953) online edition
• Ward-Perkins, Bryan. The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005) 239 pp.

Medieval, Renaissance, early modernEdit

• Blunt, Anthony. Guide to Baroque Rome (1982) architecture 1621–1750
• Brentano, Robert; Rome before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth-Century Rome (1974) online edition
• Habel, Dorothy Metzger. The Urban Development of Rome in the Age of Alexander VII (2002) 424 pp. + 223 plates; on 1660s
• Stefano, Andretta; Serena, Baiocchi, Giulia; Indrio; Orietta, Rossi Pinelli; Maria, Tantillo, Alma (2017). I Prìncipi della Chiesa. L’arte nel territorio di Roma tra Rinascimento e Barocco (in Italian). Museum With No Frontiers, MWNF (Museum Ohne Grenzen). ISBN 978-3-902966-04-9.