The description “open-air museum” has often been applied, in various senses both positive and negative, to the country of Italy in general and the city of Rome in particular. Indeed, only the imagination of a truly blinkered (or unusually phone-addicted) tourist could fail to be cast back to antiquity upon entering its historic center, itself an officially designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Yet it also takes little exposure to the intense culture of tourism and all it has wrought to wonder how Rome was back when, if you like, Rome was Rome: in the second century AD, say, when its built environment reached the height of its glory.
Manuel Bravo can show us. A YouTuber who creates highly informative real, virtual, and hybrid video tours of famous ancient places, he’s previously been featured here on Open Culture for his work on everywhere from the Acropolis to the Sistine Chapel, to Paris and Pompeii.
His “Virtual Rome” takes us on not a walk through the Eternal City of nearly two millennia ago, but a flight: viewers of modern travel documentaries will find its camera movements reminiscent of nothing so much as drone photography. This technique provides views even the most august ancient Roman citizens could never have commanded.
Beginning on the Capitoline Hill, the most sacred of the seven such formations within the original city walls, Bravo’s virtual camera passes the Temples of Jupiter and Juno Moneta; the Tabularium, which stored mail, the Roman Forum and its basilicas; and the Curia Julia, where the senators of the Roman Republic met. Lesser-known locations include the Rostra, named for the sea walls of captured enemy ships with which it was adorned, and from which the likes of Cicero would deliver their speeches; the Regia, home to the Pontifex Maximus, the prefect of Roman priests; and the “dark, stinking” underground facility known as the Tullianum, now called Mamertine Prison. Parts of that last remain open for the appreciation of twenty-first-century tourists — or at least those willing to pay the ten-euro entrance fee.
Related Content:
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The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome: A Free Online Course from Sapienza University of Rome
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
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