"Inter duas metas": urban memory and monumental transformation on the Vatican plain

Abstract

During the Middle Ages, four funerary monuments in an area known today as the Borgo underwent a syncretic transformation of memory. These monuments are the Vatican Obelisk, Meta Romuli, Terebinth of Nero, and Mausoleum of Hadrian. All four were erected during the Imperial period, between the first-century BCE and the second-century AD. This thesis groups these four funerary monuments into a funerary program that shapes the historical narrative of the Vatican plain. They were established during the early Imperial period under a funerary precedent and contributed to the religious development of Rome into a Christian city after Saint Peter was martyred in Vaticanum during the first century. As a funerary program, they contributed to a shift in Rome's power dynamic as the religious narrative of the Empire changed from polytheistic to Christian during the Middle Ages. By analyzing these monuments' identities, architectural framework, historical progression and topographical connections, this study aims to explore how their legacy has been preserved and integrated within the ager Vaticanus from the Roman Empire through the Renaissance.