Uno strumento per la conoscenza dell’Area Archeologica Centrale di Roma: il modello ligneo del quartiere Alessandrino e del Foro Romano (1871)

The wooden model was constructed in 2017 by the Department of Architecture of Roma Tre University and is now on display in the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Rome (Palazzo Braschi). It represents the diversified landscape of a part of the city at the end of the Papal State control. The new Institutions of the Italian State, in the following years, promoted many actions of strong urban discontinuity. At this moment, the Roman Forum was in a transitional phase. It had been excavated almost exclu¬sively near the Capitoline Hill, and there were fences around the monuments which had already been restored; the complexity of the ancient level would only come to light a few years later. The Alessan¬drino district, around via Alessandrina and via Bonella, was still intact. The preparatory research for the construction of the model has philologically reconstructed the urban fabric of the Alessandrino district and the archeological landscape as it was before the radical changes undertaken during the Fascist period. The model aims to virtually restore the demolished urban settlement and to make intelligible the obliterated meanings of the original Alessandrino district. The model is therefore conceived as a contribution to the knowledge of the urban history of Rome and also as a tool to inform both future enhancement programs and concrete design proposals for the Central Archeological Area.