Rome -- medieval

Kingdom of Italy

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Appearance

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Geography

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History

• 1084 - The city of Rome is attacked by the Normans.
  • The Sack of Rome of May 1084 was a Norman sack, the result of the pope's call for aid from the duke of Apulia, Robert Guiscard. Pope Gregory VII was besieged in the Castel Sant'Angelo by the Emperor Henry IV in June 1083. He held out and called for aid from Guiscard, who was then fighting the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus in the Balkans. He returned, however, to the Italian Peninsula and marched north with 36,000 men. He entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but a riot of the citizens led to a three days sack, after which Guiscard escorted the pope to the Lateran. The Normans had mainly pillaged the old city, which was then one of the richest cities in Italy. After days of unending violence, the Romans rose up causing the Normans to set fire to the city. Many of the buildings of Rome were gutted on the Capitol and Palatine hills along with the area between the Colosseum and the Lateran. In the end the ravaged Roman populace succumbed to the Normans.
• 1108 - The church of San Clemente is in this year rebuilt.
• 1140 - The church of Santa Maria in Trastevere is restored.
• 1200 - The city becomes an independent commune
• 1232 - The cloisters in the Basilica of St. John Lateran are finished.
• 1300 - Pope Boniface VIII proclaims the First Holy Year.
• 1309 - The Papacy is moved to Avignon under Pope Clement V
• 1347 - The patriot and rebel Cola di Rienzo tries to restore the Roman Republic.
• 1348 - As in most of Europe, the Black Death strikes Rome.

Though seat of the papacy, condition that assured to the city a certain number of inhabitants, the population of Rome, that in the 4th century was estimated at about 500,000, soon underwent a precipitous decline. During the Middle Age, the built-up area shrank until Romans settlement was confined to the shore of the Tiber, where water was available. Only one of the ancient aqueducts was still operating. The decline was momentarily arrested under Pope Gregory I (590-604), whose pontificate signed the first step towards the temporal power of the Church. His work of conversation did not follow a despotic design, and eventually contributed to improve the contacts between Rome and the barbaric peoples. His papacy marked the foundation of medieval Rome, although not much is known about the city in this period since little archeological evidence has survived. For a while Italy underwent a period of peace but soon became a battleground again. In the 6th century, the possession of the city was still disputed by Goths and Byzantines. But in the 7th century Rome passed under the temporary protection of the popes, who ruled the city up until the 19th century, period in which the history of the papacy is intricately connected with the history of Rome. When Pope Stephen III was threatened by the Lombards, he appealed for help to Pepin, king of the Franks. He defeated the barbars and granted the Pope a portion of Lombard territory (754), marking the beginning of the temporal power of the popes over the States of the Church. The 25th of December 800, Pepin's son, Charlemagne, was crowned by Leo III in Saint Peter's as Augustus and Emperor. The Holy Roman Empire survived until the abdication of Francis II of Austria in 1806. The walls of the Leonine City, built to defend the Borgo and St Peter's, date from the 9th century. The strength of the papacy increased under Pope Nicholas I (858-67) but with his death the prestige of the popes declined and the German emperors took an active part in the papal elections throughout the 10th and early 11th centuries. Gregory VII (1073-85), helped by some Roman noble families, reasserted papal authority, but turned out to be unable to prevent the Norman Robert Guiscard from conquering Sicily and devasting Rome in 1084.

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Population

• Annual Census, 1100 A.D.: 35,350

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Citizens

Pope Urban II

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Fortifications

• Aurelian Walls [1]

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Regiones de Roma

• I: Regio I Porta Capena

Regio I took its name from the Porta Capena ("Gate to Capua"), a gate through the Servian Walls which the Appian Way takes to get into the city. Beginning from this to the south of the Caelian Hill, it runs to the future track of the Aurelian Walls.

• II: Regio II Caelimontium

Regio II encompassed the Caelian Hill.

• III: Regio III Isis et Serapis

Regio III took its name from the sanctuary of Isis, in the area of the modern Labicana street, containing the valley which was to be the future site of the Colosseum, and parts of the Oppian and Esquiline hills.

• IV: Regio IV Templum Pacis

Regio IV took its name from the Temple of Peace built in the region by Vespasian. It includes the valley between the Esquiline and the Viminal hills, the popular area of the Subura, and the Velian Hill (the hill between the Palatine and the Oppian Hill, removed in the early 20th century to make way for the via dei Fori Imperiali, the street passing between the Forum Romanum and the Forum of Augustus).

• V: Regio V Esquiliae

The name of Regio V derives from the Esquiline hill. It contains parts of the Oppian and Cispian (two minor hills close to the city center) and of the Esquiline, plus the plain just outside the Servian walls.

• VI: Regio VI Alta Semita

The name of Regio VI derives from the street (Alta Semita, "High Path") passing over the Quirinal Hill. It was a large regio that encompassed also the Viminal Hill, the lower slopes of the Pincian, and the valleys between these. Its major landmarks included the Baths of Diocletian, the Baths of Constantine, and the Gardens of Sallust; gardens (horti) covered much of its northern part. Temples to Quirinus, Salus, and Flora were also located in Regio VI, and the Castra Praetoria. The Aurelian Wall marked most of its eastern and northern edge, with the Argiletum and Vicus Patricius on the south and southeast.[2]

• VII: Regio VII Via Lata

The name of Regio VII was derived from the via Flaminia which runs between the Servian walls and the future Aurelian Walls. This was a wide urban street (Via Lata, "Broadway"), corresponding to the modern via del Corso. The regio contained part of the Campus Martius on the east of the street plus the Collis Hortulorum (Hill of the Hortuli), the Pincian Hill (modern Pincio).

• VIII: Regio VIII Forum Romanum

The central region contains the Capitoline Hill, the valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline hills (where the Forum Romanum is located), and the area between Velian Hill and the Palatine up to the Arch of Titus and the Temple of Venus and Roma.

• IX: Regio IX Circus Flaminius

The name derives from the racecourse located in the southern end of the Campus Martius, close to Tiber Island. The region contains part of the Campus Martius, on the west side of via Lata.

• X: Regio X Palatium

The Palatine Hill gave its name to Regio X.

• XI: Regio XI Circus Maximus

Regio XI took its name from the Circus Maximus, located in the valley between the Palatine and the Aventine. It contained the Circus Maximus, the Velabrum (the valley between the Palatine and Capitoline), as well as the areas next to the Forum Boarium and the Forum Holitorium.

• XII: Regio XII Piscina Publica

Regio XII took its name from the Piscina Publica, a monument that disappeared during the Empire. It had the high ground where the church of San Saba is at present, plus its ramifications towards the Appian Way, where Caracalla's baths were.

In the 180s, a bank and exchange for Christians operated in the area.[3]

• XIII: Regio XIII Aventinus

Regio XIII contained the Aventine Hill and the plain in front of it, along the Tiber. Here was the Emporium, the first port on the river.

• XIV: Regio XIV Transtiberim

Regio XIV (the region "across the Tiber") contained Tiber Island and all the parts of Rome west beyond the Tiber. This is modern Trastevere.

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Creaturae ex Superno Romae

• Dryadales

• Figura Mutante

• Magus Princeps

• Fraternitatem Noctis

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