Destinations in Mind : Portraying Places on the Roman Empire's Souvenirs

This is a book about the Roman Empire''s places, how they were represented on circulating objects, and how they helped viewers imagine distant destinations. The book will interest readers fascinated by Roman sports, forts, resorts, ports, and travel. It explores the craftsmanship of lustrous silver, translucent glass, and colorfully enameled vessels now on display in museums around the world. Scholars working on souvenirs, material texts, and globalization will be drawn to the new framework established for the analysis of artifacts depicting landmarks. The book complements recent work on mapping and travel by recovering the nuanced senses of place that Romans had in mind.

In Destinations in Mind, Kimberly Cassibry asks how objects depicting different sites helped Romans understand their vast empire. At a time when many cities were written about but only a few were represented in art, four distinct sets of artifacts circulated new information. Engraved silver cups list all the stops from Spanish Cádiz to Rome, while resembling the milestones that helped travelers track their progress. Vivid glass cups represent famous charioteers and gladiators competing in circuses and amphitheaters, and offered virtual experiences of spectacles that were new to many regions. Bronze bowls commemorate forts along Hadrian''s Wall with colorful enameling typical of Celtic craftsmanship. Glass bottles display labeled cityscapes of Baiae, a notorious resort, and Puteoli, a busy port, both in the Bay of Naples. These artifacts and their journeys reveal an empire divided not into center and periphery, but connected by roads that did not all lead to Rome. They bear witness to a shared visual culture that was divided not into high and low art, but united by extraordinary craftsmanship. New aspects of globalization are apparent in the multi-lingual placenames that the vessels bear, in the transformed places that they visualize, and in the enriched understanding of the empire''s landmarks that they impart. With in-depth case studies, Cassibry argues that the best way to comprehend the Roman Empire is to look closely at objects depicting its fascinating places.