The book deals, in may ways, with the post-ancient history of the Roman Forum and Imperial Forums with the extraordinary fortune of their image, a true icon of the Roman spirit.

The short introductory texts accompany a very rich – most unpublished – commented iconographic collection and a refined anthology of critical and literary texts, guiding the reader by evocative itineraries to discover the transformations of the Roman Forum over the centuries to its emergence in the collective imagination through the visual arts and its symbolic and ideological reuses.

The book takes us from the Christianization of the Forum with its medieval and baroque churches to the state of Piranesian abandonment of Campo Vaccino, from the first excavations sung by Belli’s sonnets to exemplary restorations, up to the demolitions that presented temples and monuments in a way that may never have existed before, but was soon to become the unmistakable setting for views of the Grand Tour. Finally, the Forum became an unparalleled photographic and cinematographic set and a privileged place for contemporary art and advertising.

A journey through images that leads us to the discovery of one of the most iconic sites in the world.