Engineering the Eternal City: Power, Knowledge, and Urbanization in Rome, 1557-1590

Long, Pamela O, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This project is supported by the Science, Technology and Society program. It is a study of engineering and urbanization in Rome that focuses on the period 1557 to 1590 during which the physical city of Rome was transformed by numerous engineering projects: the widening and straightening of streets, the reconstruction of two ancient aqueducts, the construction of numerous fountains, the erection of obelisks at key points in the city, the construction of sewers, the building and renovation of numerous palaces and churches, and major efforts to control the flooding of the Tiber River. Maps and other images of Rome also proliferated as the city was surveyed and renovated to better reflect the power and authority of the papacy and the Church. The period of the focus of this project is well before the emergence of professional engineering. Engineer/architects, magistrates, learned antiquarians, cardinals, and others participated in discussions and wrote many proposals and tracts concerning various projects and solutions to engineering problems. Because the city was governed by two entities, the papacy and the communal government, much archival documentations also exists concerning their communication and conflicts over engineering projects. The 30 year focus does not signal a narrow local study, but rather enables a full archival investigation of the rich documentation available. This makes possible a study of the processes of engineering, its various discussions and solutions, failures as well as successes, the use of labor on work sites, the varied fates of engineers (ranging from imprisonment to high honors), and the deep relationships of engineering in Rome at this time with antiquarian and humanist learning. This in-depth study of Roman engineering in the late Renaissance has implications for two major areas of general interest. First, it will be of interest to historians of engineering as well as to those concerned with urbanization and the relationships of physical cities and their infrastructures to cultural mores and political power. These topics concern both early modern historians and many others focused on modern urbanization and political culture. Second, this study concerns the culture of knowledge and its implications for the Scientific Revolution. An important focus among historians of science has been the relationship of artisanal and technical practice to learned cultures in the development of the ?new sciences,? which emphasized experiment, observation, and empirical values. This study investigates the numerous relationships of learned men and practitioners within engineering projects in Rome. Such an investigation in the generation before Galileo will contribute a new vantage point to an ongoing discussion.