Rome: A Virtual Tour of the Ancient City

I have completely loved this course on Ancient Rome and will miss it. Prof Matthew Nicholls and department have been so generous by making it available to us. It was easy to spend a lot longer than the allotted time each week.

The course was a surprise in many ways, architecture, engineering, but also poetry and music. Interesting videos, interviews with experts, tours of the remains, analysis of function and meaning. But the 3D interactive reconstruction of the ancient city was the real revelation. After some practice in navigating, where I felt like a novice driver, not knowing which way to turn the wheel, I came to love the excitement of flying through walls and emerging high inside huge ornamented structures! I had no idea how very built up the ancient city was.

I'm a bit awe-struck at having professors and postgrad mentors interacting with us directly. More conversation with a professor on this course than I remember in my own Uni days! As usual, interesting contributions by fellow learners too.

For a keen amateur this was an engaging, accessible and most enjoyable few weeks, whilst the discussions and interpretations would also make it a good foundation for anyone wanting to study further. Not to be missed.

I found this to be a very enjoyable, as well as educational online course.
I once did an online Yale University course on Roman Architecture.
I think these two courses compliment each other very well.
I have visited Rome briefly in the past, and plan on doing so again in the future.
This course will help enhance my appreciation of the Eternal City in my future visit.
One thing I would like to see in the future, is an online course on Roman Engineering Techniques as well an in depth showcase on each of the skilled trades that made these marvels possible.
As a retired Journeyman Cabinetmaker I want to know more about the Ancient Trades and Architects.
Appolodorus of Damascus was a brilliant Architect.

This was a fabulous course. Brilliantly presented by Matthew, and drawing on an impressive range of evidence and material - not least the wonderful 3 d model of the city. I must be honest and confess that I approached the modelling with more than a degree of trepidation, as I do not naturally cleave to technology. However, I needn’t have worried as it was so intuitive and interesting. I have a long-standing interest in things Roman, arising from an inspirational Latin teacher in my school in Scotland but I have never visited Rome. I’ve now finally arranged to do that soon, and embarking on this course was part of my preparation, which I’m sure will prove to have been highly useful and a most worthwhile investment in time and thought.
Chapeau to the University of Reading team and thank you - I will certainly be checking out the other courses you offer on similar themes.
I absolutely recommend this course.

A very well presented course, I have seen many Roman sites in the UK, Europe , Turkey Tunisia, Libya, Jordan and this course gave me a more coherent view of these different places. I had not realised Rome had many homeless people, and the apartment bocks often did not have cooking facilities, hence the street take aways.

It was interesting to think of coins as a form of propaganda to spread news if the Emperors names, the temples built, the Coliseum etc round the Empire.

The section of and listing to Roman music was quite novel and will stay with me. The three D models of Rome when they worked were very good, a quite different image to the jumble of buildings you see when you visit. But some models I just could not get to wrk and " walk through despite many tries - quite frustrating as it would have been good to see the different viewpoints. And if i have Virtual reality headset that would be out of this world.

Recommended to any one with an interest in the Roman Empire

Wonderful course superbly put together with a stupendous tool in the 3D model created and kept by Matthew. I so enjoyed this course the very first one in fact that struck me on FL and it took this long to come around again. I am delighted I stayed around to complete it.

Originally I took a Ryanair flight to Rome for 4 days several years ago knowing very little and read and visited everything I could but still found it difficult to put it all together. This course has gone a very long way to doing that for me and I am very grateful.

I look forward to returning to Rome with a much better grasp of life there over the centuries. I would love a Part 2 so to speak, covering the Christian era up to the present day. Fascinating place.

Many thanks and best wishes with your upkeep and updating of the model as new information comes to light.

Ollie P.

Like other learners I never managed to properly access your model but I think my system was too old. The bits I did manage to access were great.

The range of activities - videos, the model, 3-D aspects, links, downloads and the non-mandatory quizzes catered for every learning style. I think I could listen to Matthew reading out a shopping list as he is so engaged with his learners. Big thanks Matthew to both you and your colleagues for this course.

I recommend this course to everyone regardless of age (I'm 72) as all the material was extremely well produced, easy to follow and, most importantly, interesting.

If we ever get to travel again to Rome I will look at things with quite a different attitude.

Thanks again and well done.

If it was possible to award more stars for this course, I definitely would. The amount of work I imagine must have been involved in producing it is phenomenal. The lectures are recorded and presented in Rome by Professor Matthew Nicholls who generously shares both his vast knowledge and his passion for his subject with students. These are accompanied by opportunity to use the stunning virtual model he has created (which must have taken years of work) to explore the city and some of its famous buildings as they might have been.

The course also makes excellent use of poetry analysis, music and recipes to enhance understanding of life in ancient Rome; ultimately providing an opportunity to develop an understanding of both the political and social life of its residents. The course also converted me into someone who will never again just skip the coin collections in museums - who knew they could be so fascinating and informative!

You really don't need to know anything about Rome before taking this course; I didn't, but was fortunate to also benefit from the comments of other students who did have previous understanding.

I can't recommend this course highly enough, it is so worth doing and such good use of your time.

This wonderful course was amazingly informative. Due not to only to the detailed research, the explanations offered by Dr. Matthew and his team but the audio, video and modeling elements made this an incredibly valuable learning resource.
Years of dedicated research by the contributors have enabled students from many other disciplines to increase their understanding of this complex period.
They have demonstrated that centuries old Roman culture continue to Influences our modern world and form the core of architecture, world wide influenced legal foundations and our understanding important political and social behaviour.
Huge congratulations to all those involved in making this course.

I will recommend this course to others and continue to use and value “Future Learn, “ thankful that it remains a free resource especially during this tragic year of world wide pandemic and economic destruction and with many of us locked down for our safety.
Well done Future Learn, thank you.