Rome's Trajan forum has recovered some of its former glory with a partial reconstruction of the imposing columns of Trajan's Basilica Ulpia, which soared above the ancient Italian city for over a millennia. Inaugurated in the second century and mostly collapsed during the Middle Ages, the Basilica Ulpia was the centrepiece of Trajan's Forum. "The era of Trajan is the moment in which the maximum technical capacity was reached in the history of the empire," says Rome's superintendent of cultural heritage, Claudio Parisi Presicce. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES ARRANGED IN SEQUENCES