The Roman Forum lies right behind the Colosseum, that I wrote about last week. It is the great plaza where Caesar and Augustus and other Roman emperors once trod and, like the Colosseum, has been a mecca for tourists, artists and photographers down through the ages.

It was mostly in ruins when the Vikings first sailed up the Tiber River to gaze at this wonderland of antiquity.

A View of the Roman Forum today, image from Wikipedia

I was there for one short and very hot afternoon last summer. I didn’t take as many photos as I wish I had, but the views I’ve become most enamored by are the ones that artists painted hundreds of years ago. You will find my photos mixed among those below.

By Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1691 – 1765

By Cannaletto in 1742

By Franz Kaisermann, 1765 – 1833

Watercolor by David Roberts, 1835