Professor Flavia Marcello is a writer of place-based fiction with notes of, sometimes sardonic, humour where characters question their identity. Her biography of World War 2 Resistance fighter, Carla Capponi has been shortlisted for the 2026 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.
She is an expert on the unique and multi-layered history of Rome with a focus on the Italian Fascist Period.
She is director of Synergy3 Consulting, teaches at WEA in Sydney and is a mentor with the Envisage Program.
Ancient Rome
My interest in ancient Rome started when I was teaching architectural history on site to undergraduate students in US study abroad programs. To earn extra money between semesters I worked as an academic tour guide taking small groups of tourists around to discover Rome's ancient layers.
I have carried this experience with me in writing about what it could have been like walking about in the ancient city and trying to better understand what the Roman emperors had in mind when building their monuments.
Ancient Rome was also an ‘inspiration’ for the making of Fascist Rome and for many of the buildings of this period. Mussolini liked to think of himself as the new Caesar and wanted a city that would live up the myth he constructed about himself.
I presented a paper on this at the 11th Celtics Classics conference in 2018 and see also my publication list.
These maps and diagrams are of Rome during the Flavian period. Feel free to use them in your teaching or your publications and please credit the source to Flavia Marcello & Brandon Gardiner.
