Rome. Past & Present

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Every visitor to an archaeological site knows the difficulty, often indeed the impossibility, of imagining what it was like before its buildings were destroyed. The ruins are dead things; they speak their own language, which is romantic enough, but does not evoke a picture of the monuments in their original life and splendour. This is a guide that will help him to see not only what a monument is, but, at the same time, what it was. (from the preface.)