The Symbolic Resonances of Rome’s Cityscape

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 4 introduces the cityscape of Rome as a contested battleground on which almost all strategies of claiming “Rome” can be projected. This chapter shows how the remains of the ancient city, by evoking past glory, provided the humanist poets with material for both the image of the “City of Magnificence” and the counter-image of the “City of Ruins,” supporting both “insider” narratives focused on restoration and “outsider” narratives focused on decline and decay. The chapter then examines poems that reflect emotional responses of wonder at and mourning of the Roman remains, demonstrating instances in which the goals of humanist poets and their patrons diverged, before moving over to the strategies by which the humanist poets use the monuments of Rome, and the literary representations thereof, as sites of memory, to frame themselves as the ultimate guides to Rome’s legacy. By so doing, this chapter introduces another dimension of the battle, in which the humanists also fight on their own behalf—instead of providing weapons and functioning as spin doctors in the “battle for Rome” on behalf of others. This chapter engages with the growing body of literature concerning the cultural meaning of “ruins” and the “Fall of Rome.”