Vittoriano
CYCLE: An International Capital: Rome and Foreigners
SPEAKER: Matteo Sanfilippo
DATE: Thursday 27 February, 6 pm
For almost thirty years, the immigration emergency has been invoked to bemoan the ills of a city that has been defined as devastated by sudden and improvident immigration. However, if one reads the Roman chroniclers of the 15th century, one sees how they lamented exactly the same fact: in their eyes, Rome was no longer a city of Romans, but was now populated by foreigners. One could conclude that in today's case and that of almost seven centuries ago, exaggerations are the order of the day. Yet Michel de Montaigne, after visiting Italy in 1580-1581, declared that Rome is the most pleasant city he knows: its inhabitants come from all parts of Europe and each and every one can live there as he or she pleases. An exaggeration again? Well, censuses from the 16th century show us that Romans did not even make up half of Rome's inhabitants. The others came from the rest of the Papal States, the other Italian states, Europe and the Mediterranean basin. Soon they would arrive from even further afield. Moreover, among the Romans ‘de Roma’ of the 16th-17th centuries, how many were born in the city but of parents who had immigrated there? In short, it is necessary to rethink a city always populated by people who arrived from outside.
