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Rebuilding / Restoring Rome.The Renewal of Buildingsand Spaces as Urban Policy, from Antiquity to thePresent30-31 October 2019, RomeÉcole française de Rome, Sapienza Università di RomaCall for papersEverywhere in Rome, monuments are covered withancient or modern inscriptions that not only contain the name of the originalbuilder but also commemorate their restoration. Popes from the Quattrocento andCinquecento who acted as urban planners, such as Sixtus IV, presentedthemselves as ‘restorers’, even when they were actually modernising the City.This phenomenon is not restricted to the Renaissance period: many Romanemperors already claimed to be rebuilders, such as Augustus who repaired allthe damaged temples of Rome according to the Res Gestae, or SeptimiusSeverus who was called Restitutor Vrbis on his coinage. Rome thus seemsto be a city that constantly needs to be restored, rebuilt, born again. In thevein of the studies on urban heritage and memory and on cities’ resilienceafter disasters, more and more historians are interested in the question ofrestoration. This conference aims to investigate how the notions of restorationand rebuilding were a driving force of Rome’s urban transformation throughoutits history, from Antiquity to the 21st century, as well as apolitical program put forward by the authorities and an ideal more or lessshared by the different key actors of the city.Three aspects of this topic will be discussed.First, the conference will analyse the rebuilding and restoration programsof Rome and its main monuments. We shall consider the scope of theseprograms, compare the main objectives of the projects and their actualrealisation, and examine the concrete aspects of their implementation (funding,construction operations, use and creation of specific tools, etc.) The moreparadoxical aspects, such as destroying in order to restore or presentingmodernisation as a return to the past, will be welcome. We shall also enquirewhether the ideal of renovation was an obstacle to a broad urbanrestructuration. We invite speakers to look at paradigmatic cases, and to keepa view on the city or district scale rather than narrowly focusing on a singlebuilding.The second aspect concerns the politicalimplications of Rome’s rebuilding. To what extent and in which ways didrestoration projects fall within more general political programs, as forexample the restoration of the State and its political traditions under theRoman emperors, the reinforcement of papal authority during the medieval andmodern periods, or the recreation of classic Rome (republican or imperial) fromthe ‘French period’ to the fascist regime? What are the connections between thepractical and the symbolic dimensions of restoration? Is the purpose always totend toward the same ideal, to get back to the same period? All these questionsare closely related to how the very idea of ‘Rome’ has evolved, from Antiquityto the present. Nevertheless, speakers should avoid a purely metaphoricalunderstanding of the notions of ‘restoration’, ‘rebirth’ and ‘return to thepast’: all the papers should connect ideologies and policies with actualinterventions or at least projects of material renewal.Finally, we would like to examine therelationships between rebuilding projects and urban actors (central,municipal or spiritual powers, public experts, inhabitants, etc.) taking intoaccount claims, resistances and conflicts. The wish to return to aprevious or idealised form of the city was sometimes a demand expressed by theinhabitants of Rome in response to urban transformations initiated by the popesor the public authorities or caused by economic imperatives. Some humanists,such as Flavio Biondo, even wanted to protect Rome from the ‘violence’ of itsown population, and from the popes themselves! At the end of the Middle Ages,the idea that the Romans had been stripped of their own past became a topos. Inthe second half of the 20th century, associations devoted to heritagepreservation like Italia Nostra and intellectuals like Antonio Cedernapetitioned for the dismantlement of the fascist urban design of Rome’s areacentrale, in order to enhance its historical heritage. More broadly, weshall examine who were the initiators of these restorations, and whom theseprojects were to benefit.Speakers are also invitedto pay attention to vocabulary and concepts. We will interrogate andhistoricise the terms of ‘rebuilding’, ‘restoration’, ‘renewal’, ‘restitution’,etc. Are these terms interchangeable or do they have very specific meanings,both in the sources and in the categories used by historians? This conferencewill provide an opportunity to reflect simultaneously on the production ofurban space and on the discourses about the city.***This conference is part of the activities ofthe LIA Mediterrapolis – Espaces urbains, mobilités, citadinités. Europeméridionale-Méditerranée. XVe-XXIe siècle, and isco-financed by the Centre Roland Mousnier.The conference will be held at the Ecole française de Rome and Sapienza Università di Roma, on 30-31 October 2019.Papers are accepted in English, French and Italian.Paper proposals (500 words) should be sent by1 February 2019, together with a brief bio-bibliography (150-200 words), at thefollowing email address: reconstruire.rome@gmail.com.The École française de Rome will provideaccommodation to the selected speakers and contribute to their travel expenses.A selection of papersfrom the conference might be considered for publication in a journal or editedbook.Organizing Committee Bruno Bonomo (SapienzaUniversità di Roma), Charles Davoine (École française de Rome), Cécile Troadec(École française de Rome)Scientific Committee Martin Baumeister&#160;(Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom),Bruno Bonomo&#160;(Sapienza Università di Roma),Sandro Carocci&#160;(Università di Roma Tor Vergata),Amanda Claridge&#160;(Royal Holloway, University of London),Charles Davoine (École française de Rome),Chiara Lucrezio Monticelli&#160;(Università di Roma Tor Vergata),Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur&#160;(Università Roma Tre),Cécile Troadec&#160;(École française de Rome),Vittorio Vidotto&#160;(Sapienza Università di Roma),Maria Antonietta Visceglia&#160;(Sapienza Università di Roma)Rebuilding Rome - Call for papers - Rome October 2019Télécharger