The Katakomben-Stichting (Catacombs Foundation) is a private institution established in 1913 by the wealthy Dutch textile entrepreneur Jan F.M. Diepen and his family on the site of a ‘facsimile’ of the most famous sections of the Roman catacombs (today Museum Romeinse Katakomben), constructed between 1909 and 1913 in an abandoned quarry in Valkenburg aan de Geul, the Netherlands. The Foundation owns a collection of early Christian artifacts, watercolours and cartoons aimed at the creation of replicas of the catacomb paintings, as well as an archive, all of which await proper study and dissemination. A careful survey of the archive has added a new and valuable piece to the history of research involving the Crypt of Saint Cecilia in the Catacomb of Saint Callixtus. Diepen, together with the Trappist monk Eugenius van Doorn, coordinated between 1912 and 1916 a pioneering stratigraphic analysis of the decorations of the so-called ‘palimpsest wall’ of the Crypt, after they discovered a previously unknown fragment of an early medieval wall painting containing the bust of a Christ hovering in the sky, from that moment known as Salvatore Olandese. The analysis was supported by meticulous documentation of the decorations, which remains largely unpublished within the Foundation’s archive. The reasons for not publishing this comprehensive study remain uncertain. Examining Diepen’s notebook and correspondence with Rome-based archaeologists and art historians reveals a ‘harsh’ picture of the so-called ‘Roman school’ of Christian Archaeology, marked by rivalries and hostilities and lacking scientific collaboration with foreign scholars. It was precisely within this environment that a certain obstructionism appears to have emerged against the Dutch amateur and his circle’s efforts to study and publish the Salvatore Olandese, contributing to the ‘cancellation’ of this fresco from collective memory to this day.

This study examines the overlooked protests at the 1968 Venice Biennale to reassess the role of the media in Italy’s sessantotto. While mainstream newspapers largely dismissed the student and cultural demonstrations, illustrated magazines and television news offered more varied and sometimes sympathetic coverage, reaching millions. First-hand accounts of police violence in the work of photojournalist Gianni Berengo Gardin and in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s evolving commentary for Tempo magazine show that protest could come from within the media itself. The analysis highlights the significance of television’s innovative current affairs programming, which, despite censorship, brought global and Italian unrest into homes. By exploring the media ecosystem beyond newspapers – magazines, photojournalism, and television – this research shows how these platforms played a crucial role in shaping public understanding of 1968’s cultural and political conflicts, offering a fresh interpretation of Italy’s ‘1968’ and the complex relationship between protest and the media.

This paper examines clothing depicted in the portraits painted on the walls of the tombs of elites at various settlements in Campania and Lucania in southwest Italy in the fourth century BC, as it provides important information on sartorial appearances and self-perception, especially in view of the dearth of textiles and lack of textual sources. It investigates the interconnected relationship between dress behaviour, ethnic identity and social status among independent Italic groups in the region in this century, a time of political and cultural tensions triggered by Rome’s aggressive expansion of its territorial control. The images, as well as the material culture from grave assemblages, indicate that people expressed who they thought they were through clothing and dress accessories and that this happened on a local basis rather than on a large scale or ‘national’ level. It was predominantly women who were expressing group belonging through specific garments and styles, headdresses, colours and patterns. These images painted for perpetuity offer us a precious window on dress behaviour and they suggest that women were the primary bearers of small-scale community identities in funerary representation and in life in this period of political and social change.

The article aims to shed new light on the voices of bereaved benefactors: slaves, freedmen and freedwomen, who are often marginalized in literary and monumental sources, by exploring a series of unpublished funerary inscriptions from Rome, currently in storage at the Museo Nazionale Romano. Editions of the text, translations and commentaries have been produced by young scholars from the British School at Rome (former participants of the BSR Postgraduate Course in Epigraphy). Their entries, edited by Abigail Graham (Institute for Classical Studies, University of London, British School at Rome) and Silvia Orlandi (La Sapienza, President of the Association Internationale d’ Epigraphie Grecque et Latine), are an exciting and unique opportunity to view inscriptions through a different lens: from scholars with diverse backgrounds and interests (history, archaeology, epigraphy, as well as linguistics), including postgraduates and academics. Careful consideration of text, appearance and context presents an array of voices and audiences as well as poignant messages that transcend time and space through a common experience: grief. By incorporating interdisciplinary scholars in the editorial process, we aim to provide and promote uniquely accessible epigraphic discussions that reflect the broader impact and significance of epitaphs as texts, images and emotive experiences.