RODOLFO LANCIANI, FORMA URBIS ROMAE, 1901 - a layered map of Rome
The map “Forma Urbis Romae”, created 1901 by archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani, documents the city in meticulous detail from its ancient past through the end of the 19th century. The map is huge. Fully assembled, it’s roughly 17 feet by 24 feet. Lanciani published it as 46 separate sheets over the course of eight years.
Lanciani’s map is color coded, so that the ancient and medieval parts of the city are depicted in black, early modern parts are red, and modern parts are blue (from Lanciani’s perspective, modern meant anything after about 1871, when Rome became the capital of a newly unified Italy).
To make his map, Lanciani collected thousands of photographs, sketches, and other documents.
SOURCES FOR LANCIANI’S MAP:
Lanciani named his map Forma Urbis Romae, after an early third century map of the same name that was carved in marble; it was roughly 43 x 60 feet at a scale of 1:240. Another major source he used was the 1748 map of Rome created by Giambattista Nolli, an architect and surveyor. Lanciani also turned to tax maps, architectural plans, sketches, drawings, paintings, and photographs to fill in details about the city’s development.
http://www.mappingrome.com/openrome/lanciani.html
free pdf version of the maps: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2015/04/25/online-free-pdf-version-of-lancianis-forma-urbis-romae/
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