Image: The Pantheon in Rome

This course provides an in-depth survey of one of the hallmarks of Roman culture – its extraordinary architectural tradition, represented by monuments ranging from intact buildings such as the Pantheon in Rome, to engineering marvels such as the Roman aqueducts of southern France, and to model towns such as the marble cities of North Africa. The course will examine the architecture of the Roman empire from the reign of the first Roman emperor Augustus in the last decades BCE and first decades CE to the reign of the early Byzantine ruler Justinian 500 years later. Special attention will be paid to the urban development of Rome as an imperial capital, and to the evidence of provincial towns such as Ephesus in Turkey for the influence of Roman architecture on the indigenous traditions of the nations conquered by the Romans. The course will conclude with a consideration of the adaptation of Roman architecture to Christianity, exemplified by the great Justinianic churches of Constantinople in Turkey and Ravenna in Italy. The illustrated lectures and readings will present the major monuments and building types, as well as related subjects such as city-planning and urbanism, and Roman engineering and construction methods.

HISTART concentration distributions: 1. Ancient, D. Europe and the US