The history of the monuments and works of art of the classical period, which were in existence in Rome during the Renaissance, is of importance to us for many reasons. We may learn what were the materials which were at the disposal of the great masters in architecture, painting, and sculpture, and see in their drawings and sketches, as well as in the works which they actually executed, what use they made of the models which they had before their eyes, and what interested them in a greater or less degree. We may trace the growth of that antiquarianism out of which the science of archaeology was in process of time to develop. We may also obtain valuable information concerning much that has been destroyed or lost, or has, at least, come down to us in a very different state to that in which it was in their day.

This paper offers a fresh appraisal of the problems of the existence, location and contents of the papal library, and the associated problems of Roman script and Roman book production in the early Middle Ages. The palaeography and codicology of books from Rome, and books possibly produced in Rome, between the sixth and the ninth centuries, are reassessed in the light of current scholarship. This includes a discussion of the possible loss of Roman books originally written on papyrus, and of books in both Latin and Greek. The current archaeological evidence relating to a Lateran library and its location is considered. The implications of the evidence relating to the papal scrinium, archive and library are discussed, with particular reference to the proceedings of the Lateran Council of 649. It is argued that these records actually provide important evidence for the contents and use of the Lateran library in the early Middle Ages. The paper proposes that the papal library had a crucial function as well as a symbolic role in the early Middle Ages as a repository of orthodox and authoritative texts.

In 1816 the Bey of Tripoli presented to the Prince Regent a cargo of antiquities from Lepcis Magna. They were brought to England in 1817, and, after a sojourn in the courtyard of the British Museum, went to Virginia Water with material from other sources, to be disposed in a sham ruin. One inscribed stone was subsequently returned to the British Museum. Its findspot is certain, for it was seen c. 1806 at Lepcis Magna by J. D. Delaporte, among the remains of a building since identified as, possibly, the Temple of Jupiter Dolichenus.

It is a block of the grey limestone typical of public building at Lepcis in the first and early second centuries A.D., part of an entablature, with mouldings above and below, a socket for a roofbeam at the back, and a monumental inscription on the face. Previous publications of the text are incomplete. There are two lines of Latin, followed by one in neo-Punic. The Latin text reads:

… VESPASIAN]I F DOM[ITIAN… (erased)

…] AVG SVFE[…

Round the ancient abbey of S. Maria della Strada, its casale and its church, perhaps the most important Romanesque building now remaining in the province of Molise, there has accumulated an abundant literature, because of the many problems, historical as well as artistic and archaeological, which it presents. These problems have of recent years been the subject of fresh studies by Avv. Dott. V. E. Gasdìa and Dott. E. D. Petrella, who have reviewed the existing work on the subject, and have also called attention to a very considerable body of documentary evidence for the history of the church. Gasdìa in particular has laid the Angevin Registers and Fascicoli under contribution, and Petrella has called attention to some hitherto neglected printed sources. Gasdìa has, moreover, carried out a minute and observant examination of the building and its monuments, often with happy results; and on this and on the Angevin evidence has based his interpretation of the circumstances of the foundation and history of the monastery.

The conversion of a fourth-century secular basilica into the church of Sant'Andrea Catabarbara in Rome during the 470s invites a discussion of how architectural adaptation contributed to the identity of its restorer, Valila. More than a century after the praetorian prefect of Italy, Junius Bassus, founded the basilica in 331, a Goth named Valila, belonging to the senatorial aristocracy, bequeathed the structure to Pope Simplicius (468–83). References to Valila's last will in the church's dedicatory inscription were inserted directly above Junius Bassus's original donation inscription, inviting reflections upon the transmission of élite status from one individual to another. The particularities of Valila's legacy as a testator, as indicated in the references to his will in the Sant'Andrea Catabarbara inscription and confirmed by a charter he wrote to support a church near Tivoli, suggest that he sought to control his lasting memory through patronage. Valila's concern for a posthumous status provides a context for interpreting the interior of the Roman church. Juxtaposed to the church's fifth-century apse mosaic were opus sectile panels depicting Junius Bassus, together with scenes of an Apollonian tripod and an illustration of the exposed body of Hylas raped by two nymphs originating from the earliest phase of the basilica. The article proposes that Valila nuanced his élite identity by preserving the fourth-century images and thereby hinted that preservation fostered both the accretion of physical layers and the accrual of multiple identities by a Gothic aristocrat in Rome.

This article highlights the importance of photography for landscape archaeology and topographical studies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and explores the value of photographic collections for the reconstruction of research itineraries and reconnaissance excursions in this period. Photographs held at the British School at Rome are utilized to demonstrate the ways in which collections of images can be used to retrace and chronicle the historical paths and itineraries of early researchers in Italy. Several journeys involving pioneers in both topographical studies and the use of photography for landscape archaeology in Italy are discussed. The photographs taken by amateur photographers on these excursions are important visual records of the Italian countryside and its monuments. These images are cultural artefacts themselves and they demonstrate what was still accessible to scholars and archaeologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historical paths and itineraries of these trailblazers, and the visual and textual records they produced, are now an integral part of the history of topographical studies, landscape archaeology and the Roman roads and countryside of Italy. Through photographs, this article retraces the paths of several of these pioneers and brings their historical journeys to life.

I have to thank the Director for giving this article a place in the Annual. The Italian collections far outweigh those of the rest of Europe on the subject of Homer; and the opportunity of collating the Vatican Odysseys I owe equally to the self-sacrificing kindness of Father Ehrle, the good offices of my old friend William Bliss, who died early in 1909, and the enviable quarters Augusto mense of the British School at Rome.

Francesco di Giorgio, the Sienese architect and artist, visited Rome c. 1470. By looking at his plan of the ‘porticho del Champitolio’, it is possible to reconstruct not only what Francesco di Giorgio saw on the Monte Tarpeo, but also what Poggio Bracciolini, Flavio Biondo, Pietro del Massaio and others saw there. It was apparently a notable site, an evocative ruin worthy of commentary, artistic representation and imaginative reconstruction. Whatever temple remains continued to be visible, however, these were insufficient to suggest that they were originally part of the temple. By the end of the fifteenth century, the temple had been lost. None the less, Francesco di Giorgio unwittingly documented the last standing columns of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

This paper presents the results of an historical and topographical survey carried out in the middle Tiber valley, more specifically in the Sabina Tiberina, in the area around Poggio Sommavilla. The survey focused particularly on the area under the present-day administration of the Comune of Stimigliano, with the aim of reconstructing the topographical layout of the Roman landscape. The field survey shed important new light on the nature of the archaic and Roman road network. In particular, as well as the Via Flaminia that runs along the western limits of the study area, another road was identified running in a broadly northeast-southwest direction, which appears to have formed the main trade route that served the area during both the archaic and Roman periods. Furthermore, the study of earlier maps, together with the evidence from the survey, has permitted the identification along the Tiber of a number of ancient ports, the positions of which were not known previously.

It is interesting to note that the settlement pattern characteristic of the Iron Age, which favoured high plateaux overlooking the Tiber, continued into the archaic period. This appears to have had a significant impact on settlement of the Roman period, in that the earliest attested Roman villas in this area are those situated next to the Tiber. The development of the ‘phenomenon of the villa’ in the area of the Sabina Tiberina from the end of the Republican period (third to second centuries BC) is consistent with the results of studies in other parts of central Italy. The study of the pottery collected from settlements of the archaic period (Colle Rosetta) and the Roman period (San Sebastiano) confirms the importance of the Tiber as a trade route for commercial exchange.