Elizabeth Rodini, the Academy’s Andrew Heiskell Arts Director from 2019 to 2021 and Interim Director from 2021 to 2022, will present on “Talking through the Palimpsest – On the Street of the Hidden Shops: A Metaphoric Archaeology of Rome.”

We all know the palimpsest. But how can we effectively translate the stratigraphy that is Rome into a comprehensive and compelling narrative? This is one of the questions at the center of Rodini’s current book project, On the Street of the Hidden Shops: A Metaphoric Archaeology of Rome (University of Chicago Press), a deep study of two-thousand-plus years of history and a single city block on the Via delle Botteghe Oscure. Rodini will share some of the site’s stories (lodged in archaeological remains, archives, and living history), its surprises, and her strategies for layering their multiplicities into a meaningful whole. As this is a work-very-much-in-progress, she welcomes an interdisciplinary discussion about the palimpsest as both inspiration and challenge.

Rodini is a writer based in New York. Previously, she was teaching professor at Johns Hopkins University, where she founded and directed the Program in Museums and Society. She is the author of Gentile Bellini’s Portrait of Sultan Mehmed II: Lives and Afterlives of an Iconic Image (2020) and numerous articles on art, history, heritage, and memory.

This event, to be presented on Zoom, is free and open to the public.