Wandering in Rome: French travelers and the image of the early modern city

This book project forms part of a collaboration with architectural historian Niall Atkinson, in which we investigate the symbolic itineraries and representational aesthetics of urban wandering in the texts and images of early modern French travelers. Tracing the movements of these travelers, the book will reinterpret the ways in which mobile viewers reconceived and represented an emerging sense of both the history and future of Rome as a modern imperial capital. In order to stitch Rome’s past and present into coherent urban narratives, French travelers constructed itineraries that traversed both time and space, linking ancient objects to contemporary places. Built on these urban narratives, travelers’ representations reflect the changing relationships between the body, the material world, and the city.