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Abstract:  THE ART IN WARTIME MONUMETS AND POLITICS IN ROME DURING THE SIEGE OF 1849 The immediate effect of the proclamation of the Roman Republic of 1849 was the opening of a crisis that soon brought the Catholic powers of Europe to try and bring Pius IX back on his throne, if needed even with the use of force. While England witnessed rather passively the evolution of a revolution that the British public opinion ha readily looked on to with distress, rearing possible socially advanced issues, in Rome the political class siding with the triumvirate substantially found one sole possible interlocutor, namely in the United States, which, however, was too far way to exercise any real influence upon European events. Thus, isolated at a diplomatic level, the republic found in the issue of monumental and works of art safeguard the sole viable foreign policy resource to make the public observers aware of its difficulties. In fact, Europe’s entire public opinion followed with apprehension the French siege undertakings while the diplomatic representation still present in Rome, though without formal recognition, endorsed a document that condemned the French bombardments that were neither diminished nor halted in their military operations. Nevertheless, once in amidst the Papal are of influence-whose results showed how most of the damages inflicted to the works of art derived from the besieged population rather than the besieging army. The archive sources used herein, presently show that the investigation, far too timely and rapidly brought to a conclusion, did not take into full consideration all of the actually damaged monuments nor had it been really precise in estimating the causes of damage. Moreover, it points out how all the accusations brought against the republican leadership of a complete lack of concern for the urban artistic heritage were, truly, based without foundations.