Chapter 4 explores the case-studies of Cosa and Minturnae in detail and assesses the ways in which 3rd–1st century Italic towns sought to emphasize a specifically local identity through their temple roofs. Each site is examined within its regional context to show how colonists and other inhabitants made use of local networks in order to create a distinctive visual identity that was nevertheless readable for a broad spectrum of viewers.

Chapter 2 addresses one of the primary impediments to the study of 3rd–1st century Italic architectural terracottas: questions regarding their chronology and the problematic ways in which they have traditionally been bound up in assumptions regarding so-called “Romanization.” Terracottas from Cosa and Rome are discussed in particular, in order to argue that there is no evidence for a “Roman” point of origin for most terracotta types and that the field must shed the lingering baggage derived from “Romanization” theory.

Chapter 6 examines the legacy of architectural terracottas during the period of the Augustan Principate and the rise of the so-called “Campana” reliefs. While architectural terracottas had long been used to define and assert specific local identities, they were now employed to express an idealized Augustan vision of a unified, pious Italic past.

Chapter 1 introduces the scope and organization of the study. It traces the history of scholarship on Italic architectural terracottas and highlights a number of lingering problems and uncertainties that will be taken up in the subsequent chapters.

Chapter 5 asks why new colonies turned so invariably to old-fashioned motifs and to the visual culture of their conquered enemies. This phenomenon is discussed in terms of the heterogenous makeup of colonial populations, which had no single visual culture to import, and is then related to broader issues of collective memory, identity formation, and the invention of tradition.

Chapter 3 examines the five most widespread decorative roofing elements in 3rd–1st century central Italy, which are referred to collectively as the “standard temple kit.” Each type is shown to derive from earlier models, suggesting a conscious act of archaizing in their use which likely relates to notions of antiquity and deeply rooted religious authority.

The seventh chapter explores the developing aesthetic value now attached to Rome’s ruins, tracing for instance the way in which they move up scale from illustrations in books or in the background staffage of Renaissance painting to become the foregrounded subject matter in the paintings of the Baroque era and especially the eighteenth century. Engraved views, vedute and photographs provided tourists with inexpensive and portable souvenirs. The ruins have by now acquired full aesthetic validation as the principal subject matter of paintings by Claude or in the engravings of Piranesi. Thanks to the aesthetic appreciation of the ruins, images of them become common features of interior decoration.

The emergence of a ruin-aesthetic comes after Petrarch, and is initially owed to architects like Brunelleschi and to painters like Raphael. Architects wanted to build in the Roman manner, all’antica, and painters introduced Roman ruins into the background of their pictures. Such was the commitment to the study and imitation of the Roman style that the need to conserve the ruins was recognised and advocated. Hitherto it had never occurred to anyone anywhere to urge that a ruined structure should be preserved for its historical value. But a further value was now attached to the ruins of Rome, namely the aesthetic: the ruins were looked upon as attractive in themselves. The ruins also became the object of study and analysis by a new breed of scholar, the antiquarian and topographer, such as Flavio Biondo, who also wanted to ensure their preservation for future ages to admire. This is a new feature of ruin-mindedness: whatever is deemed beautiful must be preserved for later generations to study and admire and imitate. Since those later generations will include foreign visitors, tourism comes to be recognised as a sound economic reason for conserving the handsome material remains of ancient Rome.

Conservation is a fundamental feature of true ruin-mindedness, but the early attempts to preserve the ruins of Rome were unsuccessful until the tourism of the eighteenth century made it clear that there was an economic benefit to the preservation and attractive presentation of the city’s ruins. Once this was appreciated, care for the preservation of the ruins from further damage and decay became an issue. Towards the end of that century, soil and rubble were removed from the bases of a number of the more significant ruins, and steps were taken to isolate them so as to protect them from harm, an innovative measure. Rome took the lead in guarding the heritage of its built environment. But since no one had ever tried to protect a building out of doors before, novel means of preservation and even of conservation and rebuilding were devised to ensure that the ruins looked their best for visitors and for posterity. Further projects of excavation were undertaken by the French and the Kingdom of Italy in the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth century the ruins were furbished up for propaganda purposes by the Fascist regime.

The second chapter accounts for the steady ruination of Rome despite attempts at maintenance of the built environment in late antiquity. Fire, earthquake and flood were the chief agents of destruction. Repairs were always needed but became increasingly rare thanks to depopulation and diminishing public revenue. The shift of secular power to Constantinople and the gradual decay of paganism in the face of buoyant Christianity did the public buildings of Rome, especially the temples and places of entertainment, no favours. Stone from such structures began to be recycled for repairs or for the adornment of new buildings, such as churches. Depopulation emptied large sectors of the city within the Aurelian walls, and the abandoned sites were turned into farms and vineyards.

True ruin-mindedness begins with the poet Petrarch, the subject along with his successors of the fourth chapter. He was the first person we know of who visited Rome with the intention of seeing the ruins. Thanks to his unrivalled knowledge of Latin literature, he viewed the ruins as ‘sites of memory’, complementary to and made comprehensible by the texts of Roman poets and historians. For Petrarch and his successors, the ruins became an essential part of the historical and cultural heritage of the ancient Romans, a material complement to the history of Livy and the poetry of Virgil. Such complementarity was crucial to endowing the ruins with some context and meaning; they were not just piles of broken rubble but a valuable part of the Roman cultural achievement as a whole. Petrarch’s enthusiasm was infectious and it can be claimed that he initiated two new disciplines, urban topography and antiquarianism, the subjects of the next two chapters, 5 and 6. From this point on, progression will be largely chronological, as the sentiment of ruin-mindedness is developed and enlarged.

This chapter brings together literary responses to the ruins of Rome. Over the centuries after Petrarch, the ruins had acquired historical, cultural and aesthetic validation, all the outcome of the development of a sentiment favourable to ruination; in short, ruin-mindedness. For an emotional validation we must turn to writers, who put into plain words how they felt about the ruins. The feelings are surprisingly various: sometimes elation, sometimes moral disgust. Whatever the reaction, it is usually founded, as was Petrarch’s, on the fact that the ruins of Rome have a historical and cultural context, thanks to the survival of Latin literature. The physical remains of the ancient city are given meaning by the Roman literary heritage, and it is that above all which enables writers to record a varied range of nuanced responses to them that are not likely to be evoked by a ruin without a history. Reactions to the ruins are affected by shifts in sensibility, especially the influence of romanticism, which insisted upon recording impressions of the ruins in moonlight. The ruins of Rome are signs to be interpreted in endless ways. This cannot be said of any other ruins anywhere.