The course aims to provide a framework of 'historic city' as a result of projects, linguistically defined, characteristic and distinctive of the urban dimension; starting from synthetic references to the cities of pre-roman and roman times, the course will explore some specific issues regarding the foundation and urban transformation during the period between the middle ages and the modern age. The knowledge acquired by students will find specific applications in the processing of papers relating to entire cities or parts of them (streets, squares, fortifications, etc.) considered particularly significant for urban history; their original features and the subsequent transformations will be highlighted, until the current phase.