Roman Architecture: A Free Online Course from Yale

Taught by Yale pro­fes­sor Diana E. E. Klein­er, this course offers “an intro­duc­tion to the great build­ings and engi­neer­ing mar­vels of Rome and its empire, with an empha­sis on urban plan­ning and indi­vid­ual mon­u­ments and their dec­o­ra­tion, includ­ing mur­al paint­ing.”

The course descrip­tion con­tin­ues: “While archi­tec­tur­al devel­op­ments in Rome, Pom­peii, and Cen­tral Italy are high­light­ed, the course also pro­vides a sur­vey of sites and struc­tures in what are now North Italy, Sici­ly, France, Spain, Ger­many, Greece, Turkey, Croa­t­ia, Jor­dan, Lebanon, Libya, and North Africa. The lec­tures are illus­trat­ed with over 1,500 images, many from Pro­fes­sor Klein­er’s per­son­al col­lec­tion.”

You can watch the 24 lec­tures from the course above, or find them on YouTube and iTunes. To get more infor­ma­tion on the course, includ­ing the syl­labus, vis­it Yale’s web­site.

Texts used in this course include:

• Ward-Perkins, John B. Roman Impe­r­i­al Archi­tec­ture. New Haven: Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 1994.
• Clar­idge, Aman­da. Rome: An Oxford Archae­o­log­i­cal Guide, sec­ond edi­tion, Oxford and New York: Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty Press, 2010.

Roman Archi­tec­ture will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Art & Art His­to­ry Cours­es

Free Online Clas­sics Cours­es

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es