Mural crown in the context of "City wall"

In ancient Roman religion, Roma was a female deity who personified the city of Rome and, more broadly, the Roman state. She was created and promoted to represent and propagate certain of Rome's ideas about itself, and to justify its rule. She was portrayed on coins, sculptures, architectural designs, and at official games and festivals. Images of Roma had elements in common with other goddesses, such as Rome's Minerva, her Greek equivalent Athena and various manifestations of Greek Tyche, who protected Greek city-states; among these, Roma stands dominant, over piled weapons that represent her conquests, and promising protection to the obedient. Her "Amazonian" iconography shows her "manly virtue" (virtus) as fierce mother of a warrior race, augmenting rather than replacing local goddesses. On some coinage of the Roman Imperial era, she is shown as a serene advisor, partner and protector of ruling emperors. In Rome, the Emperor Hadrian built and dedicated a gigantic temple to her as Roma Aeterna ("Eternal Rome"), and to Venus Felix ("Venus the Bringer of Good Fortune"), emphasising the sacred, universal and eternal nature of the empire.

Roma's official cult served to advance the propagandist message of Imperial Rome. In Roman art and coinage, she is usually depicted in military form, with helmet and weapons. In Rome's eastern provinces, she was often shown with mural crown or cornucopia, or both. Her image is rarely found in a commonplace or domestic context. Roma was probably favoured by Rome's high-status Imperial representatives abroad, rather than the Roman populace at large. She was depicted on silver cups, arches, and sculptures, including the base of the column of Antoninus Pius. She survived into the Christian period as a personification of the Roman state. Her depiction seated with a shield and spear later influenced that of Britannia, personification of Britain.

Italia turrita (pronounced [iˈtaːlja turˈriːta]; lit. 'Turreted Italy') is the national personification or allegory of Italy, in the appearance of a young woman with her head surrounded by a mural crown completed by towers (hence turrita or "with towers" in Italian). It is often accompanied by the Stella d'Italia ('Star of Italy'), which is the oldest national symbol of Italy, since it dates back to the Graeco-Roman tradition, from which the so-called Italia turrita e stellata ('turreted and starry Italy'), and by other additional attributes, the most common of which is the cornucopia. The allegorical representation with the towers, which draws its origins from ancient Rome, is typical of Italian civic heraldry, so much so that the mural crown is also the symbol of the cities of Italy.

Italia turrita, which is one of the national symbols of Italy, has been widely depicted for centuries in the fields of art, politics and literature. Its most classic aspect, which derives from the primordial myth of the Great Mediterranean Mother and which was definitively specified at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries by Cesare Ripa, wants to symbolically convey the royalty and nobility of Italian cities (thanks to the presence of crown turrita), the abundance of agricultural crops of the Italian peninsula (represented by the cornucopia) and the shining destiny of Italy (symbolized by the Stella d'Italia).