An understanding of medieval Rome is incomplete without a grasp of the massive population drain that followed the collapse of the Empire in the fifth century. At its height in the third century, Rome was home to around 1,000,000 people, yet this number plunged to as low as 50,000 by the seventh.

Naturally, this had a dramatic effect on the urban landscape of Rome, and the medieval city became consolidated around the Tiber Bend, which offered water and transportation. This area quickly became the nucleus of the city, known as the abitato, or inhabited area. The abitato only extended so far, and vast swathes of green space spread out to the Aurelian walls, the boundary of the ancient city. These rural spaces have come to be known as the disabitato, or uninhabited area. What form did these spaces take?

According to a German soldier’s narrative in the twelfth century, the disabitato was a malicious wasteland, filled with ancient ruins, disease-ridden swamps, highwaymen, and even dragons. This narrative may have also permeated the medieval Roman understanding of the uninhabited spaces encircling the medieval city. Unfortunately, we do not have the stories of those Roman urbanites who had to interact with the disabitato on a regular basis, and as such, this narrative remains conjecture. Yet there is also much contextual evidence that suggests that the disabitato was far from “uninhabited.”

The countryside was busy with agricultural activity; its vineyards produced the wine that filled Roman cups and its fields the bread and meat that filled its tables. Prosperous suburbs on the Esquiline hill and by the cathedral of St. John Lateran developed deep in the disabitato and kept in close contact with the main portion of the city. New housing was constructed around existing churches from late antiquity. Rome’s popes, wishing to preserve the major pilgrimage sites of the city, directed resources for the upkeep and embellishment of the major churches spread across the disabitato, even restoring Roman piping to keep the surrounding areas from growing wild.

The roads of the disabitato facilitated most traffic in and out of the city. One could find pilgrims and merchants, clerics and monks, farmers and barons all traversing these highways together throughout the history of the medieval city. The city’s great ancient sites -- the Colosseum, the Forum, the bath complexes -- all lay in the disabitato, where they were put to new uses by the countryside’s residents, usually either as grazing areas or as fortified complexes for noble families.

]]> Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014.

Coates-Stevens, Robert. "Housing in Early Medieval Rome, 500-1000 ad," Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259

Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4.

De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press. 2013

Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016.

Hülsen, Christian. "Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti." Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, 2012: 395-411.

Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125.

Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press, 2005: 59-60.

The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.

Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.]]>
Along the Clivus Scauri (“the path of the Scaurus family”), we can find that the veil between our world and the past grows thinner and the often-elusive medieval disabitato becomes more visible. Much of modern Rome has paved over its former fields and country paths, but here there are still glimpses of the disabitato as it might have looked. The verdant trees and vineyards that line the road’s start give a sense of the rural setting. Further up the road, there are the churches of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, San Gregorio Magno, and Santo Stefano Rotondo that show how building plans in the 12th century adapted to security threats by building new walls and larger complexes.

The ancient sites that line the road – the Arch of Dolabella, the Neronian aqueduct, and the ruins underneath the churches – did not fall out of use in the Middle Ages and have their own interesting medieval histories. The aqueduct supported by the Arch of Dolabella, for one, was home to the holy man and hermit John of Matha in the thirteenth century! In the disabitato, roads like the Clivus Scauri (built c. 109 BC) reused and built around in the Middle Ages, demonstrating how medieval Romans put the skeletal structures of the ancient past to new purposes in their city.]]> Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Coarelli, Filippo. Rome and Environs : An Archaeological Guide. Updated ed. Joan Palevsky. Imprint in Classical Literature, Berkeley: University Of California Press, 2014.

Hülsen, Christian. Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo: cataloghi ed appvnti. Georg Olms Verlag, 1927: 256-57.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Platner, Samuel and Ashby, Thomas. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. London: Oxford University Press, H.Milford, 1929: 125.]]>
However, despite what is portrayed in primary sources from the Middle Ages and modern academic articles, the disabitato was not entirely abandoned. The land surrounding the abitato was filled with lots of open, available space used as agricultural fields and farmsteads, vineyards, and uncultivated pastures. As shown in the Mantua canvas, it was also littered with ancient monuments and ruins – some of which were reused and altered to fit the needs of people in the Middle Ages instead of being forgotten entirely.

One of the best sites to truly see this change in function is the Roman Forum, which was included in the disabitato. While the image below was done in 1772, it still shows an accurate depiction of what the forum would have looked like during the Middle Ages. Small houses surround the cultivated pasture in the middle, where vegetables, spices, and fruit trees are being grown. Furthermore, the amount of livestock grazing in the area rebranded the forum as the “Campo Vaccino,” or cow field.

Antique columns and structures don’t have the same meaning as they did for the Romans; in fact, many are spoliated into new buildings and structures that have a new use for these farmers. The most important theme of the disabitato in regards to the Roman Forum is reuse for functionality. During antiquity, the Romans used the space for sacro-civic functions. The purpose changed to an agricultural one as the centuries did, but that doesn’t diminish the forum’s importance. This transformation clearly illustrates the relationship between the people’s needs, functionality, and urban change over time.]]>
Cowdrey, H. E. J.. Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. Clarendon Press, 1998: 1-4.

Gadeyne, Jan. Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Routledge, 2016.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Lucentini, Mario. The Rome Guide: Step by Step through History’s Greatest City. Interlink Publishing (2012).

Maier, Jessica. "Francesco Rosselli's Lost View of Rome: An Urban Icon and Its Progeny." The Art Bulletin 94, no. 3, (2012): 37-43.

Sanzio, Raffaello. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. Cambridge University Press (2005): 59-60.

Waldheim, Charles. Landscape as Urbanism: A General Theory. Princeton University Press, 2016: 98.]]>
The Tomb of Annia Regilla, built in the 2nd century, was used as a barn and linked to a nearby farmhouse and tower by the 18th century. Nearby, the Columbarium of Constantine was adapted in the medieval period into a mill. A channel of water was redirected through the floor of the building, turning a millstone. One of the primary reasons that the population center of Rome shifted to the Tiber bend was the gradual breaking-down of the Roman aqueduct system. Without a reliable flow of water, family mills had to move to the river Tiber to function, or were built along newly formed streams, as is the case with the Columbarium of Constantine. As in the Caffarella, abandoned structures from antiquity became useful for new purposes as demographics and waterways changed.

While pagan sites were converted for rural use in the disabitato, churches from antiquity were generally maintained, and came to be the centers of the disabitato’s new settlements. The Tiber Bend had the advantage of easy access to the river which allowed for the transportation of goods, fishing, and the powering of mills. But many sites in the disabitato had the advantage of proximity to Rome’s great churches that saw many pilgrims.

Santa Maria Maggiore was one such site of particular importance in what became the disabitato. Pope Hadrian I renovated its monastery in 786 A.D. to ensure that a support staff would be available to care for the church. Under Benedict III’s papacy in the 9th century, the baptistery, which had fallen into disrepair, was given a new roof. “In this basilica the baptistery had remained roofless for a long time; with swift endeavor…[Benedict III] restored it and saw to its being brought to its ancient condition.” (Liber Pontificalis, 106:21). The baptistery would have been integral to maintaining a community around the church, as parishioners would baptize their children at a local church.

Throughout the Middle Ages, roads to and from the Basilica were kept open, and Roman piping was maintained to keep the site functional by the eleventh century. Surrounding the Basilica, other churches received upkeep to form a cluster of settlement. A monastery was added to nearby Saint Andrew, and the attachment of a nunnery to nearby San Bibiana ensured that the church would remain in working condition.

In another disabitato settlement, on the road to St. John Lateran, Quattro Coronati was rebuilt in 1116 with a new monastery to help repopulate the surrounding area. The revived road networks of the disabitato linked inhabited spaces together, making sites like that at S. Maria Maggiore hubs of activity. By keeping S. Maria Maggiore and surrounding churches open, more people were tempted to settle nearby. And with more people settling nearby, the churches around S. Maria Maggiore became wealthier as parishioners donated land to the church.

While traditional homes in the disabitato were centered around monumental ruins and were heavily fortified, the church settlements like that around S. Maria Maggiore mirror the housing of the abitato. As new construction occurred surrounding churches of great importance, power thus became centered around the ancient churches of the disabitato.]]> Papers of the British School at Rome, Vol. 64 (1996), pp. 239-259

trans. Davis, Raymond. The Lives o the Ninth-Century Popes (Liber Pontificalis). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.

De Vita, Oretta Zanin. Popes, Peasants, and Shepherds: Recipes and Lore from Rome and Lazio. University of California Press, 2013.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Parco degli Caffarella Website: https://www.caffarella.it/il-parco/da-vedere/colombario/

The Tomb of Annia Regilla, Pamphlet]]>
If the visitor starts walking from the north, he or she will first come across the enormous Torre delle Milizie crowning the Markets of Trajan. While the present tower was constructed in the early 13th century, it replaced an older fortification, perhaps Byzantine, which the Frangipane had held since 1179. In 1250, however, it was taken by the Annibaldi, just ten years after they had taken half of the Colosseum from the Frangipane. The Torre delle Milizie, then, gives the visitor a sense that they are walking down a key thoroughfare linking the Colosseum to the abitato, one that the family controlling the Colosseum would want fortified. While the visitor can get a decent look of the Torre from the street, he or she is encouraged to go into the Markets of Trajan to get a better look at the complex.

Heading further down the street, the visitor will walk under the arch of the Tor del Grillo. While this tower is much more poorly documented than the other two on this tour, it is an important site because its arch confirms that this road would have existed in the medieval period. While today, it looks as if the arch may belong to the 17th century Palazzo del Grillo encircling the Torre, it is visible in Antonio Tempesta’s 1593 map of Rome. The arch, then, was likely attached to the medieval tower, dating from the 13th century. As such, we can rather confidently assume that the Salito del Grillo would have been lain at some point in the Middle Ages.

The road ends at the Tor de’ Conti. Notably, only the base of the Tor de’ Conti remains today; the upper layers fell down after an earthquake in the 14th century. Unlike the other two towers, the Torre touts a walled housing complex with a small garden. Built in the late 12th century by Innocent III, a Conti, the tower played a role in a small war that broke out between the Conti and the Capocci in 1202. While the Tor de’ Conti is never mentioned by name in the narrative of the battle in the Gesta Innocentii III, the fighting seems to have been localized to the area around the Torre. Moreover, the narrative reveals that towers were central to this war; clans quickly build towers over enemy towers, come up with schemes to take strategically important towers when makeshift siege engines fail, and rain stones down onto their enemies. Considering how important towers were to this battle, the visitor can imagine how helpful the Tor de’ Conti would have been to its masters, a massive, impregnable tower overlooking a crucial suburban road.

However, it should be noted that while the Gesta Innocentii rather dramatizes the conflict, these battles would have been rather small in scale and confined to the tiny area around the Salito del Grillo. As such, the visitor should bear in mind that as helpful as these towers were in combat, this does not necessarily mean that they “controlled” roads. Indeed, they may have functioned more as status symbols than practical defense systems; more research is needed before we can truly understand how closely the towers would have affected those who travelled the highways of the disabitato. Yet, as the modern traveler will quickly notice, their presence along the road is at once awesome and intimidating, and whether or not they actually commanded the street, they certainly dominated the attentions of those travelling between the suburbs and the abitato.]]> Rome Before Avignon: A Social History of Thirteenth Century Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974.

Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

The Deeds of Pope Innocent III. Translated by James M. Powell. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004.]]>
The Vatican was the location of the Pope’s coronation by three cardinal bishops, and after his consecration, the procession would begin leaving the Vatican to move through the city, from one side to the other. Dressed in formal wear, the Pope would join the procession wearing both the episcopal miter and the royal crown, a combination of the religious and political power that he had been bestowed. The procession was divided into seventeen parts, with lower level clergy, horses, and flag bearers in the front. There would have been a parade of animals, brightly red banners with cherubim, and the sub deacons carrying the crosses. Behind them would be officials, like scribes, lawyers, judges, singers, all the way to the back where high-ranking priests, cardinals, and bishops would follow. The seventeenth layer of the procession was the newly crowned Pope.]]> McCahill, Elizabeth. "Acting as the One True Pope: Eugenius IV and Papal Ceremonial." In Reviving the Eternal City, 137-67. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.carleton.edu/stable/j.ctt6wppgv.11.

Brentano, Robert. Rome Before Avignon. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. 60-61.

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Inside the church, underneath the present 12th century basilica in the older, underground church, you can see one of the other processions recorded in the church artwork by an eleventh century painter. The fresco, done by an unknown artist, is of the procession San Clemente’s translation to the Basilica of San Clemente in the 9th century. San Cyril leads the procession of people: behind him is a crowd of people, incense hung in thuribles, and the body of San Clemente is carried on a gilt bed and covered rich fabrics. Behind them are people carrying crosses and red banners, similar to what would have been seen later during the Papal coronation of Innocent the third. At five stations along the church route, the new Pope would scatter coins into the crowd, and they would continue on to the final stop of the procession, the Lateran.]]>
The tradition of processions in medieval Rome led to specific developments in Catholic liturgy, as well as significant infrastructure projects that reshaped the street systems of the city. This 7 kilometer (3.4 mile) walking tour follows that processional route of the coronation of Pope Innocent III, beginning at the steps of Saint Peter’s in the Vatican, and ending at Saint John the Lateran; the two religious brackets containing Catholic Rome. The stops that are elaborated upon are considered to be among the most significant, both in terms of liturgy of processions, and in terms of impact on the people and neighborhoods of Rome.]]>
Even before the medieval period, the Forum was not considered to be an ideal location for a processional stop, as basilicas and houses congested the entrances to the open space, limiting the visual aspect of the liturgy to the surrounding streets. Between the ninth and fourteenth century, the population of Tiber bend more than tripled, and processional routes began to favor the area. After the Popes’ return from Avignon in the fourteenth century, the church began to invest heavily in processional infrastructure in Tiber bend and near the Vatican, reconfiguring city spaces to open up wide, straight roads that allowed processions more spatial freedom. Rather than continuing to use the forum, Popes instead chose to address the people in the piazzas in front of major churches and other landmarks within these redesigned processional spaces.]]> Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 1 (2010): 12-37.

Bauman, Lisa Passaglia. The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth Century Rome. (New York, Italica Press, 2015), 73.

Carver, Catherine. As the Bells Toll: Parish Proximity in Medieval Rome. (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK; Rochester, NY, USA: Boydell and Brewer, 2017), 196.]]>
Whether this was one of the locations at which the newly crowned pope would address the people of the city is unclear, though it is apparent that it is a location at which large crowds would gather to watch the papal procession. When the market was relocated to Piazza Navona in 1477, Cardinal Sixtus IV converted the Campidoglio into a museum of Rome’s glory by emplacing historic statues. While no longer a place of public convergences, the campidoglio cultural significance maintained its status as a landmark for processions. Its location directly between the Vatican and the Lateran palace was also a key component of its importance to papal processions. ]]> Brill (2011), 40.

Bauman, Lisa Passaglia. The Rhetoric of Power: Della Rovere Palaces and Processional Routes in Late Fifteenth Century Rome. (New York, Italica Press, 2015), 73.

Favro, Diane, and Christopher Johanson. "Death in Motion: Funeral Processions in the Roman Forum." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 69, no. 1 (2010): 12-37.]]>