This September Notre Dame Rome signed a three-year agreement with Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, the institutional body that oversees the preservation of Rome's historic buildings, archaeological sites, and its many monuments. It has an essential role in maintaining and facilitating public access to Rome's abundant historical and artistic heritage, and is responsible for numerous protected sites that are also an integral part of the city's infrastructure. These include bridges, fountains, and the Roman aqueducts' ancient components, as well as the entirety of Rome's city walls, which represent the various ages of the city's urban development.

The collaboration allows Notre Dame faculty, undergraduate students and graduate students privileged research access to the newly opened Parco Archeologico del Celio, a park that overlooks the Colosseum and houses significant archaeological artifacts.

The park is one block away from Via Ostilia, where Notre Dame Rome and the School of Architecture’s campus is located, and houses the Forma Urbis Severiana, a marble map of Rome from the third century A.D., as well as numerous epigraphs and other archeological artifacts. The fragments of the map offer extraordinary insights into the urban landscape of ancient Rome. In the new layout of the museum, these fragments are superimposed onto Giovanni Battista Nolli’s reknowed 1748 map of the city.

Joseph Connors, the Michael C. Duda Visiting Professor of Architecture at Notre Dame, has recently published a review in The Burlington Magazine on the new museum.

The collaboration between Notre Dame Rome and the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, the Musei Capitolini and the Parco del Celio, allows students to visit the museum as part of the foundational course "All Roads Lead to Rome", taken by all Notre Dame undergraduate students studying in the city. Furthermore, at the end of August, School of Architecture professors Lorenzo Fei and Paolo Vitti organized a workshop on surveying and digital documentation for students enrolled in the Master of Science in Historic Preservation graduate program. This initiative provided students with a unique opportunity to explore advanced techniques for investigating historic heritage, with support from technology provided by the engineering firm Novatest Srl.

“This partnership with such a premiere cultural institution in the city is already making possible synergies that were unimaginable before,” said Silvia Dall’Olio, director of Notre Dame Rome. “Moreover, the physical proximity on the Celio Hill between Notre Dame’s facilities and the Parco Archeologico strengthens and makes our reciprocal commitment to the neighborhood more visible.”

“We are very grateful to Dr. Claudio Parisi Presicce, the City of Rome’s superintendent of cultural heritage, for his fundamental support of our collaboration, and to Dr. Caterina Papi, Dr. Francesca de Caprariis and Dr. Francesca Romana Bigi, the archaeologist officials responsible, respectively, for the epigraphic collections, the Forma Urbis and the architectural collections.”

As part of the collaboration, the Sovrintendenza, the Parco del Celio and Notre Dame Rome are also co-organizing a major international conference to take place in 2026 aimed at strengthening this exchange initiative.

Originally published by Costanza Montanari at rome.nd.edu on October 07, 2024.