Sepolcro de tre fratelli Curazj in Albano

Title

Sepolcro de tre fratelli Curazj in Albano

Description

View shows the tomb of the three Curatii brothers in Albano Laziale near Rome. 2nd Paris edition by Firmin Didot (In: "Le Antichità Romane", Volume 3, Paris c. 1835, Plate 8 (2nd Paris edition).

ca. 1835

Artist

Piranesi (1720-1778)

Historical Description

Rome was first discovered in the 1st century BC. BC called the Eternal City by the poet Tibull. According to the legend, Rome was founded on 753 BC. Founded by Romulus. Romulus later killed his twin brother Remus when he amused himself over the city wall built by Romulus. According to historians, the consolidation of individual settlements into one community could actually have occurred around the legendary date of foundation. The proverbial seven hills of Rome are: Palatine, Aventine, Capitol, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquilin and Caelius. Today, the urban area also extends over the famous hills of Gianicolo, Vaticano and Pincio. In the 1st century AD, Rome was probably already a city with over a million inhabitants and was both the geographic and political center of the Roman Empire. It had a functioning fresh water and sewage system, an extensive road network and functioning civil protection units (vigiles), which provided police officers with their duties as a fire brigade. Since Pippin, Rome has gained new importance as the capital of the Papal States (Patrimonium Petri) and as the most important place of pilgrimage of Christianity next to Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela. New splendor came to the city in 800 when Pope Leo III. was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The flourishing of Rome in the Renaissance was interrupted in 1527 by the Sacco di Roma ("looting of Rome"). In the Renaissance and Baroque, the city found a new character, which is mainly determined by churches, but also by new streets with lines of sight on palaces and squares with fountains and obelisks. Rome has remained in this condition to this day, which is why the Roman old town alongside the Vatican is one of the two world cultural heritage sites in the city of Rome. In 1849, France stationed troops in the Papal States. In the summer of 1870, when the First Vatican Council was at a break, France withdrew it from Rome after declaring war against Prussia. Italian military seized the opportunity and marched into the Papal States almost without a fight; it politically disempowered the pope and a little later proclaimed Rome to be the capital of Italy.