The interest to protect the aedificia in oppido and in a broad sense the urban and architectural aspect of a city finds its proper legislative form, with certain and detailed provisions, only and exclusively at the local level, i.e. in the bronze leges from peninsular and extra-peninsular municipia and coloniae (centuries 1st BC – 1st AD). In this statutory context the norms contained in chapter IV, ll. 32-38, of the lex municipii Tarentini (89-62 BC) were the first to address the subject in question. The problem of building protection, or more precisely the problem of the demolition of buildings for speculative purposes, was faced by the Roman central government for the Urbs and for Italy only a century later (senatusconsulta Hosidianum, 47 AD, and Volusianum, 56 AD).
