World Heritage Roman Style

Of the items listed on the United Nation's cultural world heritage list Italy is the country that has the most, and four of these memorable sites can be found around Rome. The Etruscan Necropolis of Cerveteri and Tarquinia, the historic centre of Rome, including the Vatican properties, the classical Villa Adriana and the Renaissance Villa d'Este of Tivoli. There's nothing quite like the style of Rome.

Enduring from an unknown prehistoric time, the Etruscan civilisation endures still, in the 6000 graves carved out of the rock at Tarquinia and the thousands of tombs organised city-like in the necropolis of Cerveteri. What was it like in Etruscan Rome? To be a practising polytheist, believing in divine power manifest in all things and whole layers of interfering gods? What about that tradesman carving representational figures in terracotta, or the teenager pruning before a precious engraved bronze mirror? In some ways there's more than 2,000 years of difference. In others, there's a part of us that hasn't changed. Religion, economy, art and love, ancient and modern Rome.

These themes are certainly present in the historic centre of the city. Add power to the list and the Roman Republic and Empire, along with the Vatican state. The power of early democracy created the Roman Forum, the incredible, awe inspiring open air museum in the centre of the city. Imperial autocratic power - whether malicious or benign - built Augustus and Hadrian's mausoleums and the intricate wonder of the columns of Trajan and Aurelius. And it was papal power that built the wealth and independence of the Holy See, today represented by the stupendous Vatican properties.

With the power, economy and art so strongly centred in Rome it is little surprise that the Villa Adriana, the classic, and Villa d'Este, the Renaissance, emerged. Both are monuments to the exceptional architectural features of their time.
The Villa Adriana, constructed by Roman Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century A.D. combines Egyptian, Greek and Roman elements in a type of ideal city in classical form. The Villa d'Este, on the other hand, is an early model of European gardens and innovative design, likewise an outstanding example of 16th century Renaissance culture.

Together, they are amazing villas but they are also bridges. Bridges from ancient to modern Rome, from the past to today , that allow us to absorb the beauty of our manmade heritage, the results of human endeavour and development over the centuries, and take a more educated and definitely more stylish step into the grandeur of the future.