Building Roma Capitale: knowing and interpreting the city of the past (1870–1925)

Abstract

DThe ‘ambientista’ city of the early twentieth century was a mediated expression of many of Gustavo Giovannoni’s reflections. This paper argues that it can be studied in the light of several earlier events and through numerous archaeological and architectural activities in the newly established capital of Rome. In the progressive definition of the project of the new city, the roles of the urban context, topographical study, philology of monuments, minor architecture and of the constructive fragment are affirmed. Between 1870 and 1925, these issues were central to the work of the Municipal Archaeological Commission and the Artistic Association of Architectural Connoisseurs – AACAR. This text presents some of these trajectories and their outcomes during the first quarter of the twentieth century and the 1930s.