This 3-year project, beginning in January 2025, delves into the entanglements between architecture and the reception, revision, and resurgence of the medieval past as they unfolded in the construction of the Italian Empire. It is conducted by BSR Research Fellow Dr Tommaso Zerbi of the University of Edinburgh, who was awarded an Early Career Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust, regularly staying at the British School at Rome.

Italian colonialism often conjures up fascism, which in turn primarily evokes modernity and classicism. This endeavour offers a counter-narrative, bringing the medievalisms of colonialism to the fore. Problematising prevailing associations of imperialism with post-medieval history, along those of the built environment from the first half of the twentieth century with Modernism, it shines a spotlight on the intersections of architecture, responses to the Middle Ages, and cultural politics. By focusing on the period of empire-building from the Italo-Turkish War to Benito Mussolini’s imperial proclamation, the African continent and the Mediterranean Basin are examined as critical domains for architectural imagining. The project’s objectives include interrogating the contribution of revivalism to affirmations of systems of power, fabrications of secular and religious identities, and notions of otherness.