The Santacroce Houses along the Via in Publicolis in Rome : Law, Place and Residential Architecture in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

This contribution explores the place-making mechanisms at work in the law system of early modern Italy, and their relation to the design of urban residential architecture. Particular attention is directed at punishments of exclusion, whereby an individual or family was physically displaced from the civitas and their property was sequestered, confiscated or destroyed. As argued here, the effectiveness of these punishments depended on and further strengthened the close relation between a given family and its place of residence. The place-making mechanisms of law are explored through the specific case of the Santacroce family, whose urban property was confiscated and destroyed following their conflict with the Della Valle in fifteenth-century Rome. By reconstructing the design of the Santacroce residences, before and after their sentenced destruction, this study demonstrates how the choice of site, typology and ornamentation in urban residential architecture acquire new meaning when viewed against legal practices of exclusion.