Publications
Memoirs of the AAR
Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome began publication in 1915, shortly after the union of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome and the American Academy in Rome. The contents of the first thirty-nine Quarto volumes have varied, consisting at different times of collections of articles, monographic studies, final excavation reports, and collections of conference papers.
Volume 40, bearing the calendar date of 1995, initiated a new phase in the life of series, which has subsequently appeared as an annual journal containing articles in the wide range of fields that have traditionally been important to the Academy. These include classical studies and archaeology, art history, and Italian cultural and historical studies from the Middle Ages to the present. Submissions are encouraged from any scholar working in these fields; formal affiliation with the Academy is not necessary. A new supplementary series, entitled Supplements to the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, will accommodate illustrated monographs in art history and archaeology as well as excavation reports.
The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, an annual publication of the American Academy in Rome, gathers articles on topics including Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, an annual publication of the American Academy in Rome, gathers articles on topics including Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volume 62—a special issue on “National Narratives and the Medieval Mediterranean”—opens with an introduction to the volume, its theme, and its participants by volume editors Kimberly Bowes and William Tronzo. The first section, “Basic Building Blocks—Names and Objects,” includes the following essays: “The Role and Perception of Islamic Art and History in the Construction of a Shared Identity in Sicily (ca. 1780–1900),” by Silvia Armando; “Visigoths, Crowns, Crosses, and the Construction of Spain,” by Francesco Moreno Martín; and “Baptismal Font of the Croats: A Case Study in the Formation of a National Symbol,” by Trpimir Vedriš. The second part, “Historiography and the Monument,” includes “Recreating the Façade of a Fatimid Mosque at the Coptic Patriarchal Museum: A Step Toward the Museum’s Nationalization?” by Dina Bakhoum; “Zionism, Medieval Culture, and National Discourse,” by Judith Bronstein; and “Idealizing Medieval Mediterranean? Creation, Recreation, and Representation of Siculo-Norman Architecture,” by Ruggero Longo.
The final section, “Sites Set to Work,” features “Fortifications as Urban Heritage: The Case of Nicosia in Cyprus and a Glance at the City of Rhodes,” by Nikolas Bakirtzis; “Pre-Islamic Archeology in Tunisia: The Stakes of a Colonial Science,” by Moheddine Chaouali; and “Approaches and Perspectives on the Origins of Venice,” by Erica D’Amico. The volume closes with a related article by Irene SanPietro, “The Making of a Christian Intellectual Tradition in Jerome’s De viris illustribus.”
This volume represents the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, and the international community who use its excellent facilities. The Memoirs present a selection of articles on topics such as Roman archaeology, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
This volume represents the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, and the international community who use its excellent facilities. The Memoirs present a selection of articles on topics such as Roman archaeology, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volume 61 includes the following essays and articles: “Athens, Etruria, Rome, Baltimore: Reconstructing the Biography of an Ancient Greek Vase,” by Sheramy D. Bundrick; “Made from Life: A Roman Terracotta Portrait in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” by Peter Schertz, Pamela Hatchfield, Richard Newman, and Reno Pisano, with Rajiv Gupta and Benjamin Reichardt; “Forgery and the Antiquarian Tradition: The Identification of Horace’s Sabine Villa at Vacone,” by Matthew Notarian, Dylan Bloy, and Gary D. Farney; “Before and Below the Baths of Trajan (Rome),” by Rita Volpe; “Philostratus’ Gymnasticus: The Ethics of an Athletic Aesthetic,” by Heather L. Reid; “Baldassarre Peruzzi at Saint Peter’s: The American Academy Plan and Peruzzi’s modello of 1521,” by Peter W. Parsons; “Giovanni Battista Palumba’s Mythological Progeny,” by Giancarlo Fiorenza; “The School of Athens: Theologians Reconciling Philosophy and Astrology,” by Mary Quinlan-McGrath; “From Palace to Paradise: The Transformation of the Palazzo Sanseverino into the Gesù Nuovo in Naples,” by Maria Ann Conelli; and “Vasi, Piranesi, and the Accademia degli Arcadi: Toward a Definition of Arcadianism in the Visual Arts,” by Susan M. Dixon.
The volume closes with a special section, “New Work on the Archaeology of Late Antique Rome,” which includes three pieces: “Late Antique Restoration and Consolidation of the Aqua Claudia,” by Valeria Bartoloni and Laura Braccalenti; “Hemicycle of the Circus Maximus: Synthesis of the Late Antique Phases Revealed by Recent Investigations,” by Marialetizia Buonfiglio, Stefania Pergola, and Gian Luca Zanzi, with an Appendix by Domenica Dininno and Alessandro Vecchione; and “Piazza Augusto Imperatore, Excavations 2007–2011: The Late Antique Transformations,” by Caterina Maria Coletti and Ersilia Maria Loreti.
The foundation of the American Academy in Rome dates back more than one hundred years to the early decades of the last century. Over the years, the Academy has acquired a study collection of material goods from antiquity, including coins, statues and figurines, lamps, stucco and other architectural fragments, jewelry, and inscriptions. While most are Roman in origin, some pieces are Greek or Etruscan. Some were gifts, others come from long-ago excavations, a few were bought.
The foundation of the American Academy in Rome dates back more than one hundred years to the early decades of the last century. Over the years, the Academy has acquired a study collection of material goods from antiquity, including coins, statues and figurines, lamps, stucco and other architectural fragments, jewelry, and inscriptions. While most are Roman in origin, some pieces are Greek or Etruscan. Some were gifts, others come from long-ago excavations, a few were bought. The Collection of Antiquities of the American Academy in Rome, the latest addition to the Supplements to the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome series, focuses on highlights of the collection. Sections of the work are written by area specialists, with introductory material contributed by volume editors Larissa Bonfante and Helen Nagy, both of whom have published widely in archaeology and art history.
This volume represents the interests of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of articles on topics including—but not limited to—Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
This volume represents the interests of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of articles on topics including—but not limited to—Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volumes 59 and 60 include the following essays and articles: “Roma and the Virtuous Breast” by Lillian Joyce; “Roman Rhetoric, Metroac Representation: Texts, Artifacts, and the Cult of Magna Mater in Rome and Ostia” by Jacob Abraham Latham; “Female Patrons and Honorific Statues in Pompeii” by Brenda Longfellow; “Visual Evidence for Roman Infantry Tactics” by Michael J. Taylor; “A Reconsideration of Renaissance Antiquarianism in Light of Biondo Flavio’s Ars Antiquaria, with an Unpublished Letter from Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905–1999)” by Angelo Mazzocco; “Varro and the Development of Roman Topography from Antiquity to the Quattrocento” by Seth G. Bernard; “Argicida Mercurius from Homer to Giraldi and from Greek Vases to Sansovino” by Luba Freedman; “The Hieroglyphics of Kingship: Italy’s Egypt in Early Tudor England and the Manuscript as Monument” by Sonja Drimmer; “Regarding Parmigianino’s Early Portraits” by Giancarla Periti; “Locating the Chaldean Embassy to Pope Paul V in the Sala Regia of the Palazzo Quirinale in Rome” by Cristelle Baskins; “Waterworks for New St. Peter’s: The Four Rivers of Paradise and the Cult of Teresa of Avila in 1616” by Pamela M. Jones; “The Aviaries of the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine: Roman Antiquity, the Levant, and the Architecture of Garden Pavilions” by Natsumi Nonaka; “Virgil, Pietro da Cortona, and the Heroism of Aeneas” by Michael C. J. Putnam; and the 2013–2014 and 2014–2015 Reports on Research in the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy in Rome.
This volume represents the interests of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of articles on topics including—but not limited to—Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
This volume represents the interests of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of articles on topics including—but not limited to—Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volume 58 includes the following essays and articles: “Renaissance Ideas of Space,” by Ingrid D. Rowland; “Cosmological Space between Copernicus and Newton,” by Hilary Gatti; “’The Nobel Sense of the Curve’ from Antiquity through Borromini,” by Livio Pestilli; “Utopian Cities in Cinquecento Italy: Games of Space and Knowledge,” by Lina Bolzoni; “Locating the Ustrinum of Augustus,” by Carlos E. Noreña; “The Visual Language of Nero’s Harbor Sestertii,” by Naomi A. Weiss; “A Constantinian Image Program in Rome Rediscovered: The Late Antique Megalographia from the So-Called Domus Faustae,” by Susanna McFadden; “Splitting the Core: The Transverse Wall at the Basilica of San Paolo in Rome,” by Nicola Camerlenghi; “Questions of Identity: Alexander VII, Carlo Rainaldi, and the Temporary Façade at Palazzo Farnese for Queen Christina of Sweden,” by Margaret A. Kuntz; and “Prince Giovanni Battista Pamphilij (1648–1709) and the Display of Art in the Palazzo al Collegio Romano, Rome,” by Stephanie C. Leone
These volumes represent the interest of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities.
This volume represents the interest of the American Academy in Rome, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series presents a selection of articles on topics including—but not limited to—Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volumes 56 and 57 includes the following essays and articles: “Parsing Piety: The Sacred Still Life in Roman Relief Sculpture” by Laetitia La Follette; “On the Outside Looking In: Pliny’s Natural History and the Portrayal of Invisibility Rituals in the Latin West” by Richard L. Phillips; “Cult and Circus in Vaticanum” by Regina Gee; “Finding His Niche: On the ‘Autoapotheosis’ of Augustus” by A. J. Droge; “Urbanism and Identity at Classical Morgantina” by Justin St. P. Walsh; “The Visual Dreamscape of Propertius 3.3” by Emma Scioli; “The Pons Sublicius: A Reinvestigation” by Pier Luigi Tucci; “Apollo and Daphne by Antonio del Pollaiuolo and the Poetry of Lorenzo de’ Medici” by Luba Freedman; “Leonardo Bufalini and the First Printed Map of Rome, ‘The Most Beautiful of All Things’” by Jessica Maier; “The Matrix: Le sette chiese di Roma of 1575 and the Image of Pilgrimage” by Barbara Wisch; “‘Universal History of the Characters of Letters and Languages’: An Unknown Manuscript by Athanasius Kircher” by Daniel Stolzenberg; “G. B. Piranesi’s Diverse manière and the Natural History of Ancient Art” by Heather Hyde Minor; “Architectural Amnesia: George Howe, Mario De Renzi, and the U.S. Consulate in Naples” by Denise R. Costanzo; and “A Forgotten Dig near Ostia” by Archer Martin.
This volume from the American Academy in Rome represents the interests of AAR, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities.
This volume from the American Academy in Rome represents the interests of the AAR, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who use its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series (MAAR) presents a selection of ambitious articles on subjects represented by the AAR. These topics include, but are not limited to, Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volume 55 includes the following essays: “The ‘Joslyn Augustus’ and ‘Good, Bad and Altered’ Symposium at Creighton University” by Gregory S. Bucher and Meghan C. Freeman; “Is This Our Princeps? Reflections on an Unusual Augustan Head in Cedar Rapids” by Richard De Puma; “Recutting Roman Portraits: Problems in Interpretation and the New Technology in Finding Possible Solutions” by John Pollini in collaboration with William Storage; “Reconfiguring Roman Portraits: Theories and Practices” by Eric R. Varner; “A Corpus of Inscriptions: Representing Slave Marks in Antiquity” by Deborah Kamen; “Fortune’s Extremities: W. Lutatius Catulus and Largo Argentina Temple B: A Roman Consular and His Monument” by Eleanor W. Leach; “Urban Real Estate in Late Republican Rome” by Scott E. Craver; “Hadrian and the Oracles of Antinous (SHA Hadr. 14.7)” by Gil H. Renberg; “Bread and Water: Septimius Severus and the Rise of the Curator aquarum et Miniciae” by Rabun Taylor; “The Aura of the Numinous and Its Reproduction: Medieval Paintings of the Savior in Rome and Latium” by Nino Zchomelidse; “Bronzino and Apuleius: An Allegory with Venus and Cupid (London, National Gallery NG651)” by Ross S. Kilpatrick; “New Evidence on Piranesi's Circle in Venice and Rome: The Ambassador Francesco Venier and Carlo Lodoli” by Louis Cellauro; and “Caracalla and the French Revolution: A Roman Tyrant in Eighteenth-Century Iconography” by Susan Wood.
The Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome began in 1915 and were published almost annually, with the exception of the years of the two world wars, until 1980.
This volume from the American Academy in Rome represents the interests of AAR, its fellows, residents, and the larger international community who utilize its excellent library and facilities. The Memoirs series (MAAR) presents a selection of ambitious articles on subjects represented by AAR. These topics include, but are not limited to, Roman archaeology and topography, ancient and modern Italian history, Latin literature, and Italian art and architectural history.
Volume 54 includes the following essays: “From Gregory XIII to Louis XIV: The Art and Politics of Reform in France” by Nicola Courtright; “Gregory XIII and Political Pragmatism in the Age of the Pax Hispanica” by Thomas Dandelet; “Pope Gregory Xiii, Jurist” by Jack Freiberg; “Mimesis, Ceremony, Praxis: The Cappella Paolina as the Holy Sepulcher” by Margaret A. Kuntz; “A Dragon for the Pope: Politics and Emblematics at the Court of Gregory XIII” by Marco Ruffini; “Gregory XIII and the Accademia di San Luca in Rome” by Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe; “Three Passages on Tiberius and the Courts” by Leanne Bablitz; “Porta Triumphalis and Fortuna Redux: Reconsidering the Evidence” by Melanie Grunow Sobocinski; “Rewriting Vergil, Rereading Rome: Maffeo Vegio, Poggio Bracciolini, Flavio Biondo, and Early Quattrocento Antiquarianism” by Elizabeth M. McCahill; and “The Art of the Appraisal: Measuring, Evaluating, and Valuing Architecture in Early Modern Europe” by John Nicholas Napoli.
A definitive overview of the evidence for terracotta roofing elements that enhances our knowledge of Etruscan—and more broadly, ancient—architecture.
Although initially intended for the innovative, if prosaic, purpose of providing waterproof and fireproof cover for earlier thatch-roofed homes, fired clay tiles, in seventh- and sixth-century Etruria and Central Italy, combined with Etruscan love of adornment to create exceptional domestic and religious building decoration. Featuring statues and figured friezes of humans, animals, and mythological figures intended to convey the status of the owner or dedicator, the surviving terracotta roofs provide important insights into the architectural history of Etruria. With Symbols of Wealth and Power, Nancy A. Winter has provided a definitive overview of the evidence for these roofing elements that will enhance our knowledge of Etruscan—and more broadly, ancient—architecture.
Jacket illustration: Tuscania, Ara del Tufo, 560–550 BC.
New essays that shed light on the shadowy figure of G. B. Piranesi.
Piranesi was an architect, engraver, antiquities restorer and dealer, draftsman, archaeologist, furniture and fireplace designer, author, and bookseller. His creations in paper and in stone garnered considerable renown in his own lifetime, allowing him to transform himself from a penniless son of a stonemason to a wealthy entrepreneur. However, despite attempts to catalogue and analyze his work, little is known about Piranesi. Since Henri Focillon published his monograph on the artist in 1918, scholars have sought to expand his interpretive strategies used to examine Piranesi and his work. This volume is a representative sampling of the contemporary scholarship on Piranesi, with each essay scrutinizing a particular aspect of his oeuvre. By engaging with material found in eighteenth-century manuscripts and printed materials, as well as the texts and images Piranesi produced, the nine essays by esteemed contributors add to the rapidly growing and diversifying field of eighteenth-century studies. The outcome is a volume that will add to the expanding, glittering mosaic of Piranesi’s life and his work.
Jacket illustration: G. B. Piranesi, engraving with inscription in ink. Biblioteca Corsiana, Rome, 29 H 22.
“The contributors offer a fresh view of Piranesi, one that not only serves to capture an ephemeral ‘state of the question,’ but should also redirect subsequent research in new and productive channels.”
—John Pinto, Department of Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
“These essays help us to see Piranesi in a new light. Erudite . . . highly readable . . . a major success.”
—Marcello Fagiolo
Featuring world-renowned scholars and essays from a broad range of fields, including literature, art, and historiography, Role Models in the Roman World is a groundbreaking collection at the cusp of the newest scholarship of the classical world.
“Role Models in the Roman World is an exciting collection, striking for the interdisciplinary range of its contributors and for their vigorous debates—indeed, strong disagreements—about ideas that are currently of fundamental importance in Roman studies: identity construction, exemplarity, memory, monumentality. In framing these crucial issues, and in displaying the range and diversity of current approaches to them, this collection will be useful to every student of the Roman world.”
—Matthew Roller, Professor of Classics, Johns Hopkins University
“This collection covers a full range of topics, from how the Romans interpreted their origins from the ashes of Troy on through themes in Roman literature, historiography, declamation, and art, ending with how Christians may have defined their self-presentation in part through reference to earlier, non-Christian models. The editors have shown themselves wonderfully adept at their task, and the result is a uniformly fine volume that will be widely consulted.”
—Anthony Corbeill, Professor and Graduate Advisor, Department of Classics, University of Kansas
“Significant essays by leading archaeologists, philologists, and art historians on a theme of central importance in the Roman world.”
—Barbara Kellum, Professor and Chair, Department of Art, Smith College
Jacket illustration: Side view of statue of Togato Barberini (photograph © Araldo de Luca/CORBIS)
New and reconsidered black-glaze pottery from the Roman Republican colony of Cosa.
This study of an important class of ceramics from the key coastal colonial site of Cosa in southwest Tuscany documents the rise of republican Rome to dominance in central Italy in the third and second centuries BC. The town and territory of Cosa constitute one of the most extensively explored sites of the Roman republican period on the Italian peninsula. Excavation and survey work by the American Academy in Rome and others at Cosa over the past half century have greatly enriched our knowledge of the development of public and domestic urban and rural architecture, the organization and exploitation of the resources of the countryside, and the patterns of economic exchange to which they testify. These latter are particularly evident in the varieties of imported and locally made black-glaze pottery that have been recovered in the excavations. While we tend to think of the ubiquitous Greco-Italic amphorae as the commercial indicators par excellence of mid to late republican Italy, this class of tableware is no less important for understanding both the maritime and inland routes of exchange.
“Ann Scott presents our best picture of Late Republican black-glaze in central Italy from the third through the mid-first century B.C. In Cosa: The Black-Glaze Pottery 2, she reassesses and updates the material published fifty years ago by Doris Taylor as well as presenting more recent deposits of black glazed pottery from Cosa.”
—Shelley Stone, Professor of Art History, California State University, Bakersfield
“This admirable study will quickly establish itself as the classic treatment of a topic of central importance for the archaeology of central Italy in the Roman republican period.”
—Bernard Frischer, Director, Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, and Professor of Art History and Classics, University of Virginia
Jacket illustration: Russell T. Scott
The definitive work on the excavation of the Temple of Vesta.
Dedicated to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, the temple of Vesta was one of the most ancient sanctuaries in the Roman Forum. The priestesses of Vesta, known as the Vestal Virgins—Rome’s only female priests—were in charge of keeping the sacred fire housed in the temple, while they themselves lived in the Atrium Vestae at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum, between the Regia (originally the residence of the kings of Rome) and the Palatine Hill. Together, the Atrium Vestae, the temple of Vesta, and the Regia formed the religious center of the Roman state until a fire destroyed much of Rome and largely burned all three buildings to the ground in 64 CE. Over the years, numerous excavations have taken place in the area and have often produced unreliable results. In Excavations in the Area Sacra of Vesta (1987–1996), Russell T. Scott compiles a definitive chronology of the history of the Atrium Vestae, clarifying much of the earlier research.
Jacket illustration: Tuscania, Ara del Tufo, 560–550 BC.
An exploration of new research on subjects relating to the maritime life of Rome and its vast empire.
It was not until the third century BCE that geopolitical realities beyond Italy forced Rome to recognize the importance of the sea to its own fate. Two centuries later, following the fall of Egypt in 30 BCE, Rome emerged as the dominant maritime power. Once in place, Rome’s dominance of the sea became an important component of its imperial history. No other power before or since has controlled the Mediterranean basin or exercised an imperial naval tenure to such an extent.
Derived from the proceedings of the conference “The Maritime World of Ancient Rome” held at the American Academy in Rome from March 27 to 29, 2003, this volume was conceived to provide a forum for recent research on subjects relating to the maritime life of Rome and the vast empire it created. With contributions from eminent scholars from around the world, this volume builds upon and extends the scope of the American Academy in Rome’s first volume on Rome's maritime life, The Seaborne Commerce of Ancient Rome: Studies in Archaeology and History. It will be of interest to scholars investigating maritime aspects of the Roman period and to upper level students studying the maritime affairs of the Roman period.
Cover credit: Roman merchantman under sail entering or leaving Portus, ca. third century AD (courtesy Fototeca Unione, AAR).
“From papers on warship slipways to prostitutes, and from piracy to hydraulic concrete, this volume will be a required source for researchers dealing with maritime life in Roman times. As with all good scholarship, the combined gravitas of the contributions here pushes research forward by discussing new fieldwork, reviewing critically previous conclusions, studying evidence in new patterns and experimental archaeology.”
—Shelley Wachsmann, Meadows Professor of Biblical Archaeology, Nautical Archaeology Program, Texas A & M University
“The Maritime World of Ancient Rome provides both theoretical and descriptive discussions of recent scholarly work devoted to expanding our modern understanding of the role of waterways and seas in Roman life. Drawing upon history and archaeology through cogent and accessible contributions by top scholars, the collection will stimulate discussion and debate for years to come. Readers will, like me, be inspired by the overarching perspective of the maritime network and its influence on so many aspects of life in the ancient Roman world.”
—Cheryl Ward, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Florida State University
“The Maritime World of Ancient Rome is not just of interest to maritime scholars but also to anyone working on the ancient Roman world.”
—Hector Williams, Trustee, Vancouver Maritime Museum, and Professor, Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia
Cosa offers detailed description of site findings from one of the most important sources on Republican and early imperial Etruria.
This book details Maria Teresa Marabini Moevs’s findings of Italian Sigillata pottery at the Cosa excavation site, an invaluable source of information on Roman colonization, urbanism, and daily life since excavation began in 1948. The exceptional external conditions at Cosa preserved archaeological levels of natural strata from the early and late first century BC, allowing documentation of the earliest phases of Italian Sigillata, which quickly became a major empire-wide export. This widely used pottery went through many changes in color and presentation during the Roman Colonial era, in response to various transitions and developments in Roman society. The research presented in this volume of the series from the American Academy in Rome will be of great interest to the archaeological and classical studies community.
The Roman villa is a classic icon of Western culture, and yet villa can be used to cover a multiplicity of ideas, experiences, and places.
The Roman villa is a classic icon of Western culture, and yet villa can be used to cover a multiplicity of ideas, experiences, and places. In the late Republic and early Imperial periods, villas are inseparable from elite lifestyles, providing a prestigious setting for leisurely and intellectual pursuits. But how did these advanced buildings come about? Roman Republican Villas examines key aspects of early villa culture and architecture, with the goal of understanding the development and deployment of villas in Republican Italy. For instance, where does the “classic” villa architecture originate? How do writers like Cato the Elder or Varro use the villa to their own advantage? How visible are Republican villas in the landscape of central Italy?
Traditional theories about villa development have been largely focused on stereotypical ideals of early Roman austerity and industriousness. New work at sites such as the Auditorium, however, proves the existence of luxurious residences already by the 5th–4th century BCE, even before the Roman conquest of Italy. Such recent developments in archaeological fieldwork have begun to reshape the discourse in such a way that old assumptions are being challenged and, in many cases, found wanting. Within this atmosphere of new discoveries and reconsideration, scholars are uniquely poised to re-examine the villa and the part it played in the culture of Roman Italy, in terms of both the material remains and the literary sources. The villa also plays a prominent role in Republican literature such as the De agri cultura of Cato and the texts of Varro, as the early Latin authors seek to fashion identities for themselves and the city of Rome. Drawing on diverse source materials, the collected essays of Roman Republican Villas help to re-center the discussion of Roman villa culture, particularly in light of new evidence offered both by fieldwork and by new approaches to Republican agricultural writers.
This volume brings together scholars of Latin literature, Roman history, and classical archaeology to offer a multidisciplinary approach to the questions connected to the emergence and development of villas and their farming culture. With contributions from leading scholars Jeffrey A. Becker, John Bodel, Stephen L. Dyson, Carin M. C. Green, Brendon Reay, Nicola Terrenato, Mario Torelli, and Rita Volpe, the viewpoints offered build upon previous scholarship and ask challenging questions about how the evidence of Roman villas has traditionally been interpreted.
Long a major element of classical antiquity, the study of the laws of the ancient Romans has gained momentum in recent years as interdisciplinary work in legal studies has spread.
Long a major element of classical antiquity, the study of the laws of the ancient Romans has gained momentum in recent years as interdisciplinary work in legal studies has spread. Two resulting issues have arisen, on one hand concerning Roman laws as intellectual achievements and historical artifacts, and on the other about how we should consequently conceptualize Roman law. Drawn from a conference convened by the volume’s editor at the American Academy in Rome, addressing these concerns and others, this volume showcases the expertise of participants from eleven European and two American universities. The Roman law of obligations—a subset of private law—is investigated in detail, together with its subordinate fields, contracts and delicts (torts). Participants elucidate the relationship between private law on one hand and Roman society and its economy on the other. Chapters also examine whether rules themselves reflect upper-class values and whether it is possible to speak of them as elements of an ideology.
This volume includes contributions by Nikolaus Benke, Cosimo Cascione, Maria Floriana Cursi, Carla Masi Doria, Paul du Plessis, Roberto Fiori, Dennis Kehoe, Ernest Metzger, Federico Procchi, Michael Rainer, Salvo Randazzo, and Bernard Stolte, as well as opening and concluding chapters by the editor, Thomas A. J. McGinn.
