Overview

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.

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9780190921897

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Destinations in Mind is an engaging and sophisticated analysis of 'material texts' (objects with writing on them), which reveals the lived experiences of mobility, globalization, and empire in the Roman world. Examining portable portrayals of place in the form of itinerary and spectacle cups, fort pans, and cityscape bottles, Cassibry provides a sophisticated analysis of multilateral change within the Roman empire. A major contribution to the study of the Roman empire and provinces, this book should be of interest to scholars, teachers, students, museum people - anyone fascinated by the ancient Mediterranean. * Gail L. Hoffman, Boston College * For Cassibry's inhabitants of the Roman world, the entanglement of people in motion, and objects in motion, was quintessentially embodied in the tangible `portrayal of place,' the thing that denotes space and place to evoke experience and emotion. This insightful book should be read by anyone interested in how humans and their things and images construct one another, in `mapping,' the `souvenir,' and archaeologies of memory, in addition to scholars of identities--local and global, individual and communal- across the Roman empire. * Ann Kuttner, University of Pennsylvania * I expect her book will inspire its readers to discover with fresh eyes objects already sitting in museum galleries and storerooms and to better appreciate in future those that are still to be excavated. Seen in this way, Destinations in Mind marks a boldly original interventionDLa first roadmap of sortsDLinto a highly promising but still uncharted field of study. * Sinclair W. Bell, Northern Illinois University, The American Journal of Archaeology *

I expect her book will inspire its readers to discover with fresh eyes objects already sitting in museum galleries and storerooms and to better appreciate in future those that are still to be excavated. Seen in this way, Destinations in Mind marks a boldly original intervention-a first roadmap of sorts-into a highly promising but still uncharted field of study. * Sinclair W. Bell, Northern Illinois University, The American Journal of Archaeology *

Destinations in Mind is an engaging and sophisticated analysis of 'material texts' (objects with writing on them), which reveals the lived experiences of mobility, globalization, and empire in the Roman world. Examining portable portrayals of place in the form of itinerary and spectacle cups, fort pans, and cityscape bottles, Cassibry provides a sophisticated analysis of multilateral change within the Roman empire. A major contribution to the study of the Roman empire and provinces, this book should be of interest to scholars, teachers, students, museum people - anyone fascinated by the ancient Mediterranean. * Gail L. Hoffman, Boston College * For Cassibry's inhabitants of the Roman world, the entanglement of people in motion, and objects in motion, was quintessentially embodied in the tangible `portrayal of place,' the thing that denotes space and place to evoke experience and emotion. This insightful book should be read by anyone interested in how humans and their things and images construct one another, in `mapping,' the `souvenir,' and archaeologies of memory, in addition to scholars of identities—local and global, individual and communal- across the Roman empire. * Ann Kuttner, University of Pennsylvania * I expect her book will inspire its readers to discover with fresh eyes objects already sitting in museum galleries and storerooms and to better appreciate in future those that are still to be excavated. Seen in this way, Destinations in Mind marks a boldly original intervention—a first roadmap of sorts—into a highly promising but still uncharted field of study. * Sinclair W. Bell, Northern Illinois University, The American Journal of Archaeology *

Author Information

Kimberly Cassibry is Associate Professor of Art at Wellesley College.

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