Nearly 31% of Rome’s palaces were built between 1378 and 1599, after a century of economic stagnation. What were the origins of this striking urban revival? Drawing on a newly compiled dataset linking palace construction to the identity of their patrons, a study shows that Romans began building palaces only once they were confident the popes would not leave the Eternal City again.

Rome, in the 14th and 15th centuries, was in ruins. Contemporaries described it as a “cadaver”. A “great stable for sheep”. Artists depicted Rome as a widow, clad in black, pleading with passersby.

Then, in the late 15th century, came an economic revolution. A new era of palace-building dawned in Rome. A city that had been suffering from dereliction and decay transformed into a flourishing metropolis: of all historically significant palazzi erected in Rome from antiquity to the 21st century, 31% were built between 1378 and 1599.

How did Rome recover? What was the origin of its palace-building boom, nearly a century after the Renaissance had come to the rest of Italy?

Turning scattered traces of the past into a coherent whole

Answering this question quantitatively required constructing an original, comprehensive database, combining archives, historians’ work, and old maps. The data-collection effort began with Giambattista Nolli’s map (1701–1756), digitised and populated with sites’ architectural histories by a wonderful team of historians. I then classified and further enriched each construction project by hand – especially to hunt down the identities of furtive patrons.

Turning scattered traces of the past into a coherent set of usable data is a challenging and creative process, and captures the richness – and the deep pleasure – of empirical research in Economic history. I built a database covering the 146 palaces whose construction projects were active between 1378 and 1599, more than 43% of which required additional research to classify.

The puzzle of Rome’s revival

Rome was, in many ways, a company town. Its economy was very much dependent on the papacy. So, when Pope Gregory XI returned the papacy to Rome........

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