Romana urbs: levels of Roman and imperial identity in the city of Rome

Abstract

This contribution investigates how the urban Roman identity of the popes and the papacy developed in relation to the Romanness of the Roman empire of the eighth century and the perception of a ‘state’ (res publica, but also imperium). It then shows examples of how the city of Rome itself was used and perceived in papal writings of the time and how all these concepts were consciously altered by the papacy in the course of the eighth century to enhance Rome's ecclesiastical and political prestige as well as its secular power.