An understanding of medieval Rome is incomplete without a grasp of the massive population drain that followed the collapse of the Empire in the fifth century. At its height in the third century, Rome was home to around 1,000,000 people, yet this…

Winding their way along the southern slopes of the Caelian Hill, the Clivo di Scauro and the Via San Stefano Rotondo follow the same route as the Clivus Scauri, a medieval (and ancient) road that connected the Palatine Hill to the neighborhood of…

Splitting Rome into the disabitato and the abitato makes it seem as if there is a heavy divide between the two parts of the city (inhabited versus uninhabited). The Mantua canvas, for example, clearly shows the distinction between the green-belt of…

Within the disabitato, antique temples, baths, villas, and shops took on new uses as the environment around them changed. At the beginning of our tour, in Parco degli Caffarella, the changes to these structures have been preserved into the present.…

This rather small road, running adjacent to the Via dei Fori Imperiali linking the Capitoline and the Colosseum, is a must-see for those interested in the barons’ skirmishes that broke out periodically throughout Rome’s late medieval history. Three…