Rome: Three millennia as capital

Besides its cosmopolitan history, spanning three theousand years, in recent times once again Rome has made the step first from city to metropolis and then to megalopolis. Which future will at- tend the Eternal City, in a time when urbanisation looks like the ostensibly inevitable outcome of globalisation? In the present volume, which marks the end of the first ten years of its journeying the Sinderesi School uses a variety of perspectives in an attempt to understand Rome. From this research emerges the hope that the "What's next?" of the civic model of Rome may take its inspiration from the continuation of a "polar" tradition of specificness and inclusivity, which characterises the universalism of antiquity and the centuries of the city under papal rule. As Pope Francis warned during his visit to the Capitol: "Rome is called to face up to this momentous challenge following the pat-tern of its noble history; to make use of its energies to welcome and integrate, to transform its tensions and problems into opportunities for encounter and growth".