Swedish Institute in Rome

An illegal Roma gypsy camp might be one of the last places you'd expect to find yourself on an expedition in search of an ancient Roman bridge. But this is what happened to Professor Hans Bjur and his colleagues as they were researching their project on the historical and modern context of one of Rome's oldest roads.

As they made their way through a more neglected corner of Rome's Ponte Mammolo suburb, they followed the directions to where the bridge should have stood, only to find themselves in the midst of a temporary settlement. While the Swedish researchers were the object of some scrutiny from the camp they had stumbled upon, Professor Bjur and his team were also fascinated to find a modern community living at the very site of the ruin they had come to examine.

An architect and a classical archaeologist have come together to give a new perspective on one of Rome's ancient roads, via Tiburtina. The result is a book just published, Via Tiburtina - Space, Movement and Artefacts in the Urban Landscape, which examines the constantly changing urban space of the road. The project involved six years of studying almost every inch of the ancient road and takes an interdisciplinary look at the road through the ages and from various angles, including its history during antiquity, the Renaissance and up to its continued use today.