Though I have been to Palatine Hill twice, understand some basic Latin, have some knowledge of Roman history and interest in the subject I found this course pretty difficult and honestly in need of improvement for clarity. Some lectures have subtitles/transcript; some do not. The Professor is very knowledgeable of course and pleasant to listen to, but sometimes it is difficult to catch what he said due to accent or him speaking rather quietly in parts. The quiz questions sometimes were not covered in the lecture, he uses the English word in the lecture but Latin in the quiz, and most maddening the maps on the slides are not oriented the same way (i.e. North at the top), even within the same lecture. Many of the questions ask where something is on the hill (Northeast, South, etc.); and there is no way to remember what the cardinal directions were on the specific slide that shows it. Also the slides are extremely busy with loads of text and notes that you cannot read during the lecture. I would suggest opening the slide show in another tab or downloading it. At least you can complete the whole course free unlike many on Coursera. Good luck, I'm rather glad to be done with it to be honest.

I would like to thank Prof. Paolo Carafa for giving me an insight in the archeology and history of the Palatine Hill in such great detail. I was always fascinated by ancient Rome and this course has inspired me to continue discovering Roman arts, architecture and culture. At the beginning of the course I had some difficulties with orientation and finding the locations of places on the Palatine. Also, the quiz questions sometimes were not covered in the lecture. Fortunately, I could use google search and the maps provided in the slides to further investigate. I really enjoyed this very interesting course and hope more courses like these one will follow.

Highly interesting! For me as a Latin teacher, this filled important gaps in my knowledge. I only don't give 5 stars, because I find the power point material not structured enough, I quickly loose orientation in it. Apart from that: excellent.

Great course, learned a lot. The course would greatly benefit from a complete transcription, though. Had to use Google to help with some translations and a couple questions aren't even covered within the videos or the powerpoint presentations.

The poor nature of the presentation is demonstrated by the low average initial scores of several of the quizzes.

Talk about a messed up course. Don't even know where to begin. Transcripts for only a few lectures: 6.1, 6.2, 8.1, 8.2. Be sure to download the image files; this helps some. But...

The graphic images jump around from Palatine to other locations with no reference titles or dates. Could definitely benefit from a logical presentation for each image noting

a. Time frame

b. Aerial view of actual location on the Palatine (why NOT Google Earth View?). And an occasional photo from a logical point of view (e.g. from Temple of Vestal Virgins, looking west) to help with orientation.

c. Map View of Palatine with the same N-S orientation or pop-up showing the location on a smaller "map"

d. Area within Palatine to be discussed.

e. Sections within that area, showing temples, houses, etc. clearly labelled, etc.

f. And a consistent geographic orientation to give students a real frame of reference.

Lesson 1 1° Tutorial 2° Tutorial - Auto Desk Auto Cad 3° Tutorial- How to Use Map Points to Draw an Archaelogical Map, and I thought, cool, we will always come back to the same line map of the Palatine, then show a new layer with this week's structures, since the landscape won't change much (esp. since we don't talk about Trajan digging up a hill). But no, Autocad is never mentioned again.

It would be nice if each image/slide had a label, a number, date or era, and a clear title, since sometimes we are looking at line drawing then a room that may or may not be from that same drawing.

How about a bibliography and a glossary?

Some words are only found on tests, and while I wasn't willing to watch one lecture a second time, I'm pretty sure that the answer to one quiz is not even mentioned until the lecture that comes after the quiz! Some of the quizzes use words that aren't in the lectures and not even Google can find. Is it English, Latin, Italian, or mispronounced?

And there are several other smaller quibbles (e.g. categorically wrong answers on quizzes) that really make this course a disappointment.

I really wanted to enjoy this work. If I knew the name of the primary source of the slides shown, I'd get that book, and learn a great deal more than I did from this course.

Bad subtitles, bad audio quality, bad editing. There's a 2 minute introduction to using autocad in which the teacher instructs us to google for something rather than providing the direct link. It all feels very unprofessional but this is what I've come to expect from Sapienza.

Great course. I'm so grateful to Prof. Carafa and his team for presenting all this wonderful material on Septimontium and Rome from the Bronze Age down to the early Christian era, including so much interesting information, so many interesting facts and artifacts uncovered since my study and visit there in 1969. The course put a lot of what I knew already in a broader, more up-to-date mix of perspectives and added a lot of valuable knowledge and ideas based on archaeological investigations to date and current scholarship. The PDFs also are invaluable for building a timeline. Thank you, Professor and your team!

I would have appreciated transcripts of all modules, in US English or at least instructions in changing the selection to British English. THe instructor was excellent, unfortunately due to language/cultural differences some things took a while to figure out. Please do not mistake this for a fault in the instructor, it is the fault of Coursera. This instructor was fantastic and I will take more classes presented by him.

I enjoyed the course very much. Thank you for sharing it with us. Prof. Carafa made a difficult and "multi storey" topic, such as the Palatine hill, easy to understand. I higthly raccomend this course to each one interested on the Palatine's history. (better to know a bit of Roman History before to take the course).

Very well done!! It is difficult to follow up all the details in this short sessions, but with some offline aid and readings the whole topic emerge in a structured and fascinating way! Looking forward to other offering from the university la sapienza and the amazing professor Carafa!!!

If you are interested in Roman Architecture, you will find this course very interesting. It deals specifically with the development of the Palatine Hill thoughout the history of Ancient Rome, at a detailed level. For each era relevant contextual information is also provided.

I went from knowing very little about this time in history to knowing quite a lot by the end. The course was full of easy to understand topics and covered all areas as necessary. I found this course very good and full of very useful info.

Outstanding course. This course gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for the evolution of the Roman Forum, centering around the Palatine Hill. The course has inspired me to continue my research into this phase of Roman culture.

This Course is very interesting! Professor Carafa is very thorough and dedicated, it was a pleasure to listen to him! I especially liked the balance between the "on site " and the "auditorium" lectures! Thank you so much!

Fascinating course detailing the ancient building structures on the Roman Palatine Hill. As an architect, I greatly appreciated the knowledge and invitation to experience the metamorphoses of monuments and structures.

This course was fantastic ! Congratulations to Professor Paolo Carafa and Coursera. Thank you very much for this worderful course ! I learn very much with it. Julio César (from Brazil)

I’m now living in Siena so visiting Roma and it’s wonderful ancient architecture especially the Roman forum and the palatine hill has new excitement and knowledge for me.

I appreciate the opportunity to learn the history of Rome and how it became the marvel city it is today . I will enjoy a lot more my next trip to Rome. Thank you .

A very good course to know some archaeological and architecutral knowledge about Rome. The assignments are a little hard but it is fine. A good course anyway.

Complete, concise and precise. Very easy to understand and the professor is clear and suited for the position of teaching this course.

I really enjoyed all the videos in this course! I hope to find more from this professor on this topic soon.

Thank you! Grazie

Very interesting course and much necessary to continue an interest I have in learning about Ancient Rome. Thanks so much!

Very good indepth overiew of the history of Rome. Been there often but will look at it differently next time i visit it.

Excellent course material. Very Interesting and easy to follow. Why we have to download AutoCAD if it was not used?