TEMPORARY INSTALLATIONS. POLITICS AND CITY IN THE HISTORY OF ROME, FROM THE 17TH CENTURY TO ROMAN SUMMER
introduction
Camilla De Boni
The power of the city of Rome has always been represented through symbolism, rather than through production, and image has had an instrumental role in its self-representation. Power demands collectivity to look through the filter of the image to examine, recognize and strengthen itself. Artists are tasked with organizing the immediateness of images in allegories, metaphors, and narrations. Broad participation can be allowed by setting collective experiences in spaces that host a wide audience. The itinerary of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome organized by Saint Philip Neri takes on the sense of an out-and-out stage direction, that leads pilgrims across Roman Christian monuments. The route is punctuated by Domenico Fontana’s Sistine obelisks, serving both as urban orientation devices and as nodes of the straight tracks that connect pilgrimage places…
