Civis Civitas Civilitas

The exhibition aims to describe this process combining buildings with similar functions distributed in the cities of the empire. An exhibition dedicated to the relationship between city, citizenship and civilization in the Roman world, described through the models of ancient architecture.

Roma Capitale - Department of Cultural Growth - Capitoline Superintendence for Cultural Heritage promoted the exhibition curated by Claudio Parisi Parisi Presicce and Claudia Cecamore, with the collaboration of the Imperial Forum Museum and the Museum of Roman Civilization. Organization by Zètema Progetto Cultura.

A short guide to the exhibition is published and a photographic atlas of the models after their restoration is planned.

The exhibition project documents the urban character of classical culture. The sharing of spaces, buildings and laws is the civitas, the fulcrum of Roman civilization. So, the exhibition is a journey into the spaces and buildings of the cities of the Empire, represented in the plaster models of the Museum of Roman Civilization, made by Italo Gismondi for the 1937 Augustan Exhibition of Romanity. The models depict both the factual state of the monuments in the 1930s and their reconstructions. They also add the value of documentation of transformed or disappeared monuments to their intrinsic scientific value, especially in the territories where war events occurred.

This exhibition is an event with a dynamic character. The grand opening on 20 December will open only the first section of the exhibition, set up in the Great Hall and on the galleries of the Museum of the Imperial Forums in Trajan's Markets. It consists of 58 models and 6 casts of sculptures representing famous personalities of the Roman world. In 2020 the next sections set up along the external path of the Markets of Trajan along the via Biberatica will open.

Throughout its entire duration, the exhibition will combine cultural and educational events and initiatives. Trainees and volunteers of the National Civil Service projects serving in the Imperial Forum Museum will take part in the design and implementation of the educational activities, addressed to all according to the criteria of accessibility and integration.

The exhibition develops seven macro-themes, represented by the models already positioned in the Great Hall for the opening on 20 December, and then declined in a series of specific themes: public spaces (indicated by holes, curiae, capitolia and temples); the water in the decoration of the city (fountains, nymphaeums and baths); entertainment (theatres and amphitheatres); triumph, honour and passage (triumphal and honorary arches, city gates); trade (markets); individual, family and state memory (tombs and monuments); infrastructure (bridges, aqueducts, cisterns, water distribution castles).

The model of the Forum of Augustus opens the exhibition and due to its communicative effectiveness, it has been moved from the hall on the upstream gallery to the central room of the Great Hall. Other models stand out for their proportions and accuracy: the Forum of Pompeii with the annexed buildings, the scene of the Theatre of Sabratha in Libya, the Trier Imperial Baths in Germany and the Gate of Saint-André in Autun, France.

The narration of the path is marked with ancient texts relevant to the individual themes and pronounced by the voices of the authors themselves or their addressees, represented by moulds of statues or portraits of the Museum of Roman Civilization: among these, the setting of the baths which Seneca describes in a letter to a friend is particularly lively.

"In ancient times, the values that give a sense of community, of sharing, of belonging are regenerated through the re-proposal of building typologies intended for the public life functions, for the exaltation of individual merits and the perpetuation of family memory. On the occasion of the foundation of new cities or the transformation of older settlements, the same orthogonal layout was always adopted and the individual types of buildings responded mostly to pre-established architectural forms, which depended on the construction of the city of Rome, considered as the model to propose again” (from the introduction in the short guide).

The monumental typologies identified are significant of the concept of Roman identity that,  expressed by the architecture with immediacy and strength,  constituted the "mark" in the landscape of Rome's expansion.

Rome appears to visitors as a model of a community (civitas) more contemporary than ever in its multiculturalism.

The second section of the exhibition opens on 29 June.

The image of the life of Civitas in the Roman Empire is completed by the sections dedicated to infrastructure: 24 new models depict bridges, aqueducts, buildings related to water distribution and, finally, markets.