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.

In the summer of 1924, a young Neapolitan scholar, Mario di Martino Fusco, claimed to have discovered the long-lost 107 books of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita, sparking an international media frenzy. Announced prematurely by his supposed ally, Francesco Ribezzo, the claim captivated the scholarly world until it was definitively debunked. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary newspaper reports and scholarly reactions, this article reconstructs the unfolding of the Livy delusion: from Martino’s initial assertion, through journalistic hysteria and academic opportunism, to the final official inquiry revealing a misreading of a fourteenth-century reference. The episode not only ruined Martino’s career but also exposed the vulnerabilities of scholarly ambition, press sensationalism and nationalist rivalries in Fascist Italy. It remains one of the most extraordinary cases of literary delusion in classical scholarship, illustrating both the enduring allure of lost texts and the dangers of credulity and pride.

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freedmen and freedwomen, who are often marginalized in literary and monumental sources, by exploring a series of unpublished funerary inscriptions from Rome, currently in storage at the Museo Nazionale Romano.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.

Il presente articolo prende in esame tre iscrizioni sepolcrali custodite presso la biblioteca della British School at Rome (BSR) e, fino ad oggi, rimaste inedite. Si propone, pertanto, una trascrizione, accompagnata da un commento e dall’analisi stilistica delle tre lastrine di colombario, nell’attesa che le iscrizioni vengano registrate, fra gli altri, nell’Epigraphic Database Roma. Una delle epigrafi è un componimento metrico che commemora la sepoltura comune di due coniugi, di cui ci perviene solo il nome del marito, Quirino. Il testo metrico articola numerosi topoi della poesia funeraria romana e suggerisce interessanti considerazioni sul processo di componimento e consumo poetico in ambito epigrafico. Le ulteriori tabelle di colombario, che presentano ancora i fori di fissaggio, ricordano la morte prematura di due bambini, Clado e Cyclas. Riportando alla luce questi importanti documenti, l’articolo si propone di fornire utili informazioni relative alla collezione epigrafica della BSR e di contribuire alla conoscenza del materiale epigrafico lato sensu.

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.

Il Grand Tour, viaggio culturale ed educativo intrapreso dalle élite europee tra il XVI e il XIX secolo, ha svolto un ruolo fondamentale nella formazione dell’identità culturale europea. Questo fenomeno, che aveva come meta privilegiata l’Italia, si trasformò progressivamente con l’ascesa della borghesia, evolvendo verso forme di turismo più moderne. William Barnard Clarke (1806–1865), architetto e antiquario inglese, compì un Grand Tour tra il 1838 e il 1840, attraversando Francia e Italia. Fino al 2020, la sua esperienza era poco documentata, ma la riscoperta di 39 disegni ha offerto nuove prospettive sul suo viaggio. Le sue raffigurazioni, incentrate su siti architettonici e archeologici, forniscono testimonianze visive preziose, come nel caso della città romana di Veleia. Clarke, membro attivo della Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, contribuì in modo significativo alla cartografia e agli studi architettonici, con l’obiettivo di diffondere il sapere oltre i circoli accademici. Il suo rapporto con i reperti antichistici si estese anche oltre i suoi viaggi, come testimonia la sua militanza tra le fila dell’Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica di Roma. Il suo viaggio segna la transizione dal Grand Tour aristocratico a un approccio più strutturato e scientifico allo studio del patrimonio culturale, evidenziando il suo ruolo di documentarista e promotore di una conoscenza più accessibile delle antichità europee.

In a quiet corner of the British School at Rome’s photographic archives, the story of Thomas Ashby’s remarkable voyage to Australia in 1914 lay hidden for nearly a century. At that time, he was the BSR’s Director, and, after he died in 1931, a series of his unlabelled photographs was passed on to the School. Establishing the context for each of its 61 images has extended our understanding of Ashby, his time in Australia- and his work well beyond Rome and the Mediterranean. The series brings into view the global history of the BSR and its earliest efforts to develop international academic networks.

Falerii Novi, in the heart of the ager Faliscus, offers an unrivalled opportunity to investigate the peri-urban landscape of a Roman town. The paper presents some of the results of a research project that has been looking at the entire peri-urban landscape of Falerii Novi through a multidisciplinary approach, including extensive geophysical surveys, pedestrian surveys, and targeted excavation. The paper focuses on the area to the south of the city, where a series of geomorphological and archaeological features have been newly detected. The results have revealed that despite the artificial and natural boundaries of the city (i.e., the city wall and the steep ravine of the Rio Purgatorio), the community's efforts in managing, exploiting, and occupying the peri-urban area were substantial. The paper presents the newly recorded evidence of the significant effort put into water management as one of the key factors in shaping the landscape, demonstrating how the geological composition of the territory conditioned the engineering solutions adopted. Finally, the discussion focuses on the discovery of an agricultural area, likely a mixed cultivation system relating to the production of a surplus by the inhabitants of a large suburban villa.

This article offers a fresh interpretation of the ancient Roman relief at Palazzo Sacchetti, identifying it as a depiction of the senatorial delegation meeting Septimius Severus at Interamna in AD 193. Through iconographic analysis, it argues that the relief embodies the Senate’s expectations for Severus’ rule, grounding his image in the principle of Iustitia and portraying him as a model of moderation and fairness. Ultimately, it reveals how the relief uses a ‘historical’ depiction of a real event as a lens to examine the negotiation of power dynamics between the emperor and the Senate at the outset of Septimius Severus’ reign.