From Wednesday, June 8, the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome will be hosting the international conference "The 'city' across time. Emergence, developments, and social, economic, political, cultural and health impact". The event was organised in collaboration with the Department of Ancient World Studies and will be opened by the President of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Roberto Antonelli and the Rector of Sapienza University Antonella Polimeni.

The Conference will offer a diachronic and interdisciplinary account of the formation of the city and the radical changes this process produced in the life of communities, in terms of their social, economic and political relations, relations on the territory – between the city and the 'countryside' and between the metropolis and small centres –, the forms of production and circulation of goods, the development of long-distance trade, in the regulation of social relations and the law.

Relations between the city and the State will also be analysed, as well as the economic role played by public institutions and private categories and households from the earliest formative stages to the present day, highlighting how urbanisation has been able to play an essential role in the dissemination of knowledge and expertise, but also contributed to increasing inequalities and imbalances, sometimes generating social tensions and conflicts and requiring ever stronger forms of central coordination.