Introduction to the Disabitato
Title
Description
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 number plunged to as low as 50,000 by the seventh.
Naturally, this had a dramatic effect on the urban landscape of Rome, and the medieval city became consolidated around the Tiber Bend, which offered water and transportation. This area quickly became the nucleus of the city, known as the abitato, or inhabited area. The abitato only extended so far, and vast swathes of green space spread out to the Aurelian walls, the boundary of the ancient city. These rural spaces have come to be known as the disabitato, or uninhabited area. What form did these spaces take?
According to a German soldier’s narrative in the twelfth century, the disabitato was a malicious wasteland, filled with ancient ruins, disease-ridden swamps, highwaymen, and even dragons. This narrative may have also permeated the medieval Roman understanding of the uninhabited spaces encircling the medieval city. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of those Roman urbanites who had to interact with the disabitato on a regular basis, and as such, this narrative remains conjecture. Yet there is also much contextual evidence that suggests that the disabitato was far from “uninhabited.”
The countryside was busy with agricultural activity; its vineyards produced the wine that filled Roman cups and its fields the bread and meat that filled its tables. Prosperous suburbs on the Esquiline hill and by the cathedral of St. John Lateran developed deep in the disabitato and kept in close contact with the main portion of the city. New housing was constructed around existing churches from late antiquity. Rome’s popes, wishing to preserve the major pilgrimage sites of the city, directed resources for the upkeep and embellishment of the major churches spread across the disabitato, even restoring Roman piping to keep the surrounding areas from growing wild.
The roads of the disabitato facilitated most traffic in and out of the city. One could find pilgrims and merchants, clerics and monks, farmers and barons all traversing these highways together throughout the history of the medieval city. The city’s great ancient sites -- the Colosseum, the Forum, the bath complexes -- all lay in the disabitato, where they were put to new uses by the countryside’s residents, usually either as grazing areas or as fortified complexes for noble families.
Creator
Source
Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014.
Coates-Stevens, Robert. "Housing in Early Medieval Rome, 500-1000 ad," Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259
Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4.
De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press. 2013
Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016.
Hülsen, Christian. "Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti." Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, 2012: 395-411.
Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125.
Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press, 2005: 59-60.
The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.
Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.
Date
Identifier
Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Description
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 number plunged to as low as 50,000 by the seventh.
Naturally, this had a dramatic effect on the urban landscape of Rome, and the medieval city became consolidated around the Tiber Bend, which offered water and transportation. This area quickly became the nucleus of the city, known as the abitato, or inhabited area. The abitato only extended so far, and vast swathes of green space spread out to the Aurelian walls, the boundary of the ancient city. These rural spaces have come to be known as the disabitato, or uninhabited area. What form did these spaces take?
According to a German soldier’s narrative in the twelfth century, the disabitato was a malicious wasteland, filled with ancient ruins, disease-ridden swamps, highwaymen, and even dragons. This narrative may have also permeated the medieval Roman understanding of the uninhabited spaces encircling the medieval city. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of those Roman urbanites who had to interact with the disabitato on a regular basis, and as such, this narrative remains conjecture. Yet there is also much contextual evidence that suggests that the disabitato was far from “uninhabited.”
The countryside was busy with agricultural activity; its vineyards produced the wine that filled Roman cups and its fields the bread and meat that filled its tables. Prosperous suburbs on the Esquiline hill and by the cathedral of St. John Lateran developed deep in the disabitato and kept in close contact with the main portion of the city. New housing was constructed around existing churches from late antiquity. Rome’s popes, wishing to preserve the major pilgrimage sites of the city, directed resources for the upkeep and embellishment of the major churches spread across the disabitato, even restoring Roman piping to keep the surrounding areas from growing wild.
The roads of the disabitato facilitated most traffic in and out of the city. One could find pilgrims and merchants, clerics and monks, farmers and barons all traversing these highways together throughout the history of the medieval city. The city’s great ancient sites -- the Colosseum, the Forum, the bath complexes -- all lay in the disabitato, where they were put to new uses by the countryside’s residents, usually either as grazing areas or as fortified complexes for noble families.
Creator
Read Wilder (2020)Date
1250Coverage
1100sSource
Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014.
Coates-Stevens, Robert. "Housing in Early Medieval Rome, 500-1000 ad," Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259
Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4.
De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press. 2013
Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016.
Hülsen, Christian. "Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti." Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, 2012: 395-411.
Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125.
Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press, 2005: 59-60.
The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.
Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.