"'New Rome'" has been used for:
★ It was a common name applied to '
Constantinople', the city founded by
emperor Constantine I the Great in
324 (known as
Byzantium before that date; renamed
Istanbul in modern times). Although there is no evidence that such a title was actually used for official purposes in Constantine's own time, it was used at the
First Council of Constantinople (
381).
★ It is used to express connection with or discontinuity from the "old"
Rome, depending upon context, and is particularly used by the Greek Orthodox Church to emphasise that the see of Constantinople should be considered as second only to Rome in prestige.
★ It has been a cultural, historical, and theological concept within much of
European culture (as far east as Russia) for centuries if not millennia.
★ It was used to refer the idea of
Moscow being the "
Third Rome", which was popular since the early Russian
Tsars. Within decades after the
Fall of Constantinople to
Mehmed II of the
Ottoman Empire on
May 29,
1453, some were nominating
Moscow as the "Third Rome", or new "New Rome". Stirrings of this sentiment began during the reign of
Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow who had married
Sophia Paleologue. Sophia was a niece of
Constantine XI, the last
Eastern Roman Emperor and Ivan could claim to be the heir of the fallen
Eastern Roman Empire. The idea crystallized with a
panegyric letter composed by the
Russian monk
Philoteus (Filofey) in
1510 to their son Grand Duke
Vasili III, which proclaimed, "Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will not be a fourth. No one will replace your Christian
Tsardom!"
★ In the
14th century, as the
Byzantine Empire weakened, the capital of
Bulgaria Tarnovo(
Tarnovgrad) claimed to be the
Third Rome based on its preeminent cultural influence in the
Balkans and the
Slavic Orthodox world
★
La Serenissima
★
Paris has at various stages of its history been designated "nouvelle Rome" or New Rome, as early as the reign of
Philip IV (1268-1314) but from a tradition starting most significantly under the rule of
Louis XIV who dominated most of Western Europe, and whose capital experienced massive increases in population, wealth, lavish royal building projects (there were 500,000 people in Paris by the mid-17th century, compared to 350,000 in London). However it was
Napoleon III's appointment of
Baron Haussmann as city planner of Paris in the mid-19th century, that is the cause of the appellation in modern times.
★ Within the context of
Protestant Reformation, it became a pejorative description, applied to nations or cities that earned a reputation for rapacity, immorality, or other social or political faults. This may have its roots in virulently anti-Roman(Catholic)
propaganda against "
papists" and the city of
Rome, home of the
Pope and heart of the
Roman Catholic Church, which drew the ire of many a Reformation author. In the present day, "New Rome" is used in this form mostly to refer to "political immorality", casting any large and powerful country into the role of an oppressive and expansionistic
empire. "
Babylon" is often used in a similar sense.
★ ''Terza Roma'' (Third Rome) is also a name for the
Benito Mussolini[1] plan to expand Rome towards
Ostia and the sea. The
Eur neighbourhood was the first step in that direction.
★ In the
post-apocalyptic science fiction novel ''
A Canticle for Leibowitz'' by
Walter Michael Miller, Jr., first published in
1959, the residence of the post-nuclear holocaust Pope is called New Rome. In the sequel ''
Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman'', New Rome was revealed to have been founded on the site of
St. Louis, Missouri.
★
Nova Roma is the name of a
fictional country of the
Marvel Universe, first appearing in ''
New Mutants'' #8 (October,
1983). The
comic book was written by
Chris Claremont and drawn by
Bob McLeod. This
colony of the
Roman Republic was reportedly founded shortly after the death of
Julius Caesar in
44 BC. The colony is hidden in modern
Brazil. The
psychic vampire Selene was the
de facto ruler of the city for centuries. Her alleged descendant
Magma would leave the city to join the New Mutants, (briefly) the
X-Men and the New
Hellions.
References
★ Dmytryshyn, Basil (transl). 1991. ''Medieval Russia: A Source Book, 850-1700''. 259-261. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fort Worth, Texas.
1. Discorso pronunciato in Campidoglio per l'insediamento del primo Governatore di Roma il 31 dicembre 1925, Internet Archive copy of a page with a Mussolini speech.
See also
★
Nova Roma
★
Byzantism
★
New Jerusalem
★
Translatio imperii