Claudia Moatti

The second part of this book is the "Documents" section containing a compilation of excerpts which is divided into six parts (pp. 145–199): 1, The city under threat (La ville menacée); 2, Piranesi, the archaeologist (Piranèse archéologue); 3, The journey to Rome (Le voyage à Rome); 4, Parker the photographer (Parker photographe); 5, Tales of excavations (Histoires de fouilles); 6, Christian archaeology (L'archéologie chrétienne). These are followed by a list of further reading, list of illustrations and an index. The book has been translated into American and British English, Dutch, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese.

Moatti has been a full professor at USC since 2004. She has published a number of books and articles. She is interested in the construction of the concept of Res publica, her book on this subject—Res publica : Histoire romaine de la chose publique—has been published in April 2018, by Fayard. She is currently working on four books.

She earned her PhD in History at the Paris-Sorbonne University, and taught at the University of Paris. She is also a former member of the staff of the French Academy in Rome. She has done research on the history of the discovery of ancient Rome and the "invention" of Roman archaeology in the late 1980s. The first findings of this project is presented in her book À la recherche de la Rome antique.

Moatti organised a project of research on the history of rediscovery of the ancient city of Rome in the late 1980s, the findings of this project gave birth to a small volume—À la recherche de la Rome antique (lit. "In Search of Ancient Rome"; English-language edition: The Search for Ancient Rome)—published by Éditions Gallimard in their Découvertes collection. According to standards of the collection, the book is profusely illustrated with colour plates—illustrations taken from manuscripts, maps, mosaics, frescoes, photographs, drawings, engravings, 16th to 19th-century paintings and other sources—printed on glossy paper.

Claudia Moatti (also known as Claude Moatti; born 19 February 1954) is a French historian specialised in ancient Roman Studies. She is currently professor of Roman history at Paris 8 University, and Adjunct Professor of Classics and Law at the University of Southern California (USC).