Concept
The Museo Virtuale delle Mura di Roma (Virtual Museum of the Walls of Rome) tells the story of Rome’s defensive circuit and its successive enlargements (Servian Walls, Aurelian Walls, Vatican Walls, Walls of Pope Urban). The gates are the key elements of the Museum, and to go through them is to discover their history but also the topographic, cultural, social, symbolic and narrative context of the city.
The walls are steeped in meaning and memories, offering a diachronic perspective stretching from ancient times through to the contemporary age.
The Virtual Museum will grow over time, with the addition of further thematic strands.
At present 4 themes can be selected in the Virtual Museum:
- Epochs: gates and the course and architecture of the walls
- Gates
- Stories from the Walls: places and characters
- Itineraries: suggested routes for “travellers” navigating the current topography of the city along the walls
The epochs identify and tell the story of the different building and architectural phases of the walls, and the enlargements made for defensive needs or due to military innovations. The four main lines of walls mirror the phases of Rome’s expansion – as an early republic, as the capital of an empire, as the centre of Christianity and the Papal State, and then as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy and finally of the Republic.
The gates are a limit, a boundary, but also a form of protection, a place of encounter or of exclusion: from the early passageways of the Servian Walls to the monumental gateways of the modern period and through to the 19th-century transformations, they are at the centre of historic episodes or legends.
The stories are about significant places along, next to or around the walls, through the voices of the figures who lived in, knew and recounted them over time.
The routes outline possible itineraries along the circuit and illustrate the main points of historical, archaeological, artistic and architectural interest, and the curiosities one encounters when following them, usually from one gate to another.
Target
The Museum has a wide-ranging target audience, requiring a range of different approaches, some with a more popularizing and storytelling mode, and other more specialist ones, but never overly technical and always potentially suited to everyone.
For further in-depth study there is a Resources section with a virtual library, which can be updated and added to over time.
Credits
Realized by Roma Capitale – Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali in collaboration with the Istituto di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale del CNR.