Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

I remember I saw Workmen digging behind the Church of Sts Cosmas and Damianus and that they took up a Marble Table Stone; which stuck to the Wall in the nature of casing, and on it was carv'd both the Plan and the Prospect of the City of Rome. (..) The Marble is now in the Collection of Cardinal (Alessandro) Farnese. Flaminius Vacca's 1594 account of discoveries of antiquities which took place in his lifetime, as quoted in "The Travels of the Learned Father Montfaucon from Paris thro' Italy - 1712"

Museo della "Forma Urbis" (inaugurated in January 2024 together with nearby Parco Archeologico del Celio): main hall where fragments of the marble map are inserted in a glass floor upon which is printed for reference the Map of Rome drawn by Giovan Battista Nolli in 1748

The ancient map was affixed to a wall of Tempio della Pace and it had an east-up orientation (this orientation was used well into the XVIIIth century, e.g. in the 1781 Map of Rome by Giuseppe Vasi). The plan measured approximately 13 m in height and 18 in width. The carvings which showed walls, columns and other architectonic features were uniform in depth. That made rather difficult to observe what was depicted in its upper part. In the new museum the fragments are placed on the floor, so that all their details can be clearly seen. This page shows some of the most interesting ones.

Fragment bearing the names of Emperors Septimius Severus and Antoninus (Caracalla) (they ruled together between 198 and 209); the exact original location of the fragment is uncertain. Clivus Victoriae is located in the northern side of the Palatine, but the fragment is placed in the approximate site of the new museum between SS. Giovanni e Paolo (left) and S. Gregorio Magno (right) on the Coelian hill

Vespasian reorganized the city from the material as well as from an administrative point of view; (..) a new map of the city was drawn, and the cadastre of public and private property revised. These documents were deposited in a fireproof building, an oblong hall 42 metres long, 25 metres wide, constructed expressly on the west side of the Forum Pacis, between it and the Sacra Via. (..) The map of the city, drawn in accordance with the last official survey and the results of the census, was exhibited on the side of the hall facing the Forum of Peace. We do not know whether it was simply drawn in colors on plaster, (..) or engraved on marble. (..) The city was again half destroyed by fire in the year 191, under Commodus. (..) The house of the Vestals, the jewelers' shops on the Sacra Via, (..) and the Forum and Temple of Peace were leveled to the ground. (..) Septimius Severus and his son Caracalla undertook, with the reconstruction of the city, the reestablishment of the archives of the cadastre, and, in memory of their work (..), they caused a new and revised edition of the plan of the city to be engraved in marble and exhibited in the same place, that is to say, on the front of the building facing the Forum of Peace. (..) This celebrated "Forma Urbis" was engraved on marble at an approximate scale of 1:250.
Rodolfo Lanciani - The ruins and excavations of ancient Rome - 1897

The main hall of the new museum seen from Clivo di Scauro

The building which houses the museum was erected in the 1870s as Palestra all'Orto Botanico, a gymnasium which in 1929 was redesigned and assigned to an organization of the Fascist regime for the indoctrination of the youth. After WWII it became a recreational facility for the members of the local police. In 2016 plans were approved by the City of Rome for turning it into the current museum. The main hall enjoys natural light during most of the day owing to its south-western exposure.

(above) Title of Giovanni Pietro Bellori's 1673 book showing the fragments of "Forma Urbis" (aka Farnesian Tables) at Palazzo Farnese; (below-left) a fragment showing (VACH-A), perhaps a small temple to Minerva Chalcidica; (below-right) a fragment showing a temple to Minerva on the Aventine; we know that it was peripteral hexastyle, about 22 metres wide and 45 long, with 13 columns on each side, only because of the fragment, because the building itself is yet to be found

Ascending the stairs (of Palazzo dei Conservatori) we find its walls lined with twenty-six fragments of two ancient plans of Rome taken from the walls of the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian in the XVI. century, one of which had been repaired in the time of Septimius Severus and of Caracalla, whose names are inscribed on one of the fragments as then living: AVGG. NN.. (..) They were placed here by Benedict XIV., in 1742. (..) Those marked with an asterisk are copied, as a modern inscription to the left records, from prints published in the XVII. century by Bellori from the originals, some of which were lost whilst they lay in the Farnese palace. (..) These fragments, as the reader will find in the following pages, are of great importance in fixing the topography of ancient Rome.
Rev. Jeremiah Donovan - Rome Ancient and Modern - 1843
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (1613-1696) was curator of antiquities for Pope Clement X and is better known as an art historian (The Lives of the Modern Painters, Sculptors, and Architects - 1672 - e.g. Caravaggio).

Giovanni Battista Piranesi - Le Antichità Romane - 1756: engraving showing some fragments in the stairs of Musei Capitolini (see other fragments in the frontispiece of the book)

After 1871 the fragments were removed from the stairs and placed on a wall of the garden behind Palazzo dei Conservatori. They covered only one tenth of the total engraved surface, thus those which had been identified (ca 200) and placed on the wall did not give an idea of the whole original marble plan. This set up was dismantled and eventually some of the fragments were moved to the sites which they showed, e.g. at Horti Maecenatis.
The image used as background for this page shows either an elliptical fountain or a small pool of an isolated fragment which bears the inscription Balneum Caesaris, perhaps a bath of the imperial palaces.

(left) Fragment showing the aqueduct on the Coelian hill; (right) the same fragment shown by Rodolfo Lanciani in "Forma Urbis Romae" (1893-1901)

Rodolfo Lanciani (1845-1929) was the archaeologist in charge of all the excavations within the city of Rome towards the end of the XIXth century. He was also a pioneering student of ancient Roman topography. He produced a map of the ancient city of Rome, which shares the (modern) name of the marble map, i.e. Forma Urbis Romae. The map outlines ancient features in black, early modern features (based on the Nolli map of 1748) in red, and modern features (as of 1893) in blue. He placed some fragments of the marble plan in his own maps. See an interesting detail of his map showing the changes which were made after 1870 to protect the city from floods.

Fragment showing Basilica Ulpia

This fragment was very useful to the archaeologists in charge of the first excavations of the area near Colonna Traiana in the early XIXth century. It clearly indicated the shape of the basilica and the number and location of the double row of columns which surrounded its great hall. The excavations required the pulling down of many buildings, including churches and monasteries, but because of the fragment the archaeologists were sure they would have found evidence of the basilica.

Fragments showing Ludus Magnus and in the right lower corner Colosseo

Ludus Magnus: to judge from its name, the principal training school for gladiators in Rome. It was in Region III, and is represented on a fragment of the marble Plan as a rectangular court, about 60 by 90 metres in size, surrounded with small chambers and containing an elliptical enclosure. Other references give no information as to its location, but it was probably one of the four established by Domitian near the Colosseum, perhaps at the beginning of the via Labicana or just east of S. Clemente.
Samuel Ball Platner - A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome - Oxford University Press, 1929.
The uncertainty about the location of Ludus Magnus was resolved in the 1960s when the area at the beginning of Via Labicana was excavated and the ancient walls which were found perfectly matched those of the fragment. The alternative location mentioned by Ball Platner, east of S. Clemente, is today thought to house a temple to Isis.

Fragments showing monuments near S. Lorenzo in Panisperna (164 in Nolli's Map)

Where now is the Church of St. Laurence in Pane & Perna in a great empty Vault Captain Giovan Giacomo da Terni found a marble Statue twice as big as the Life, of that sort they call God Pan and under the Monastery a Marble Statue of Mars fifteen Spans high, which the Cardinal of Ferrara sent to Tivoli to adorn his Garden. In the same Place were found Arches set upon Arches, adorned with several Imbellishments. These things seem to have belonged to the Baths of Olympias. Vacca
In the late XIXth century rich Roman private houses and baths were identified in the whereabouts of the monastery (see their very fine floor mosaics). The reference by Vacca to "arches set upon arches" suggests that the arches supported terraces with porticoes and gardens and that the fragment shows a large terrace having three levels.
We do not know anything about Olympias or Olimpiades whose name is associated with the baths. A Lavacrum Agrippinae, another small bath establishment, was located in the same area, as well as Palazzo di Decio, a mansion associated with Emperor Decius. Other baths and rich houses stood to the north of this area in Vicus Patricius.

Fragment showing Porticus Liviae and the same in Lanciani's map; the map by Nolli shows SS. Silvestro e Martino ai Monti in the upper left corner of the photo

The design of an ancient double portico surrounding a market place on the Esquiline hill is still known only because of a fragment of the marble plan. It was built by Emperor Augustus in 7 BC and it was dedicated to Livia, his third wife. A very fine statue of the Emperor as Pontifex Maximus which was found in 1910 most likely stood at the centre of the portico. Today the area is marked by a steep descent from the Esquiline hill (see the plate by Giuseppe Vasi). Some adjoining very high medieval towers were most likely built by using the bricks of the portico and of its supporting structures.

Fragments showing Teatro di Balbo and Aedes Herculis Musarum in Rione Sant'Angelo

Turning to the other points of the horizon, Augustus could see (from his house on the Palatine) the transformation of the Campus Martius made by Agrippa and by himself, the Portico and Temple Herculis Musarum built by Marcius Philippus, the Atrium Libertatis by Asinius Pollio, the Temple of Saturn by Munatius Plancus, a theatre and a portico by Cornelius Balbus, an amphitheatre by Statilius Taurus, and scores of other edifices, masterpieces of architecture and museums of fine arts. (..) Suetonius says : "He was fond of erecting costly structures under the name of his wife, of his sisters and nephews, like the Basilica of Caius and Lucius, the Portico of Livia, that of Octavia, and the Theatre of Marcellus. He would also urge his wealthy friends to follow his example by raising new buildings, or by repairing and adorning old ones. His call was responded to by Marcius Philippus, who built the Aedes Herculis Musarum; by Lucius Cornificius, who rebuilt the Temple of Diana on the Aventine; by Cornelius Balbus with his theatre.
Rodolfo Lanciani - The ruins and excavations of ancient Rome - 1897
Lanciani based his description of the monuments which Augustus could see from his house mainly on the fragments of the marble plan. The temple of Hercules and the Muses was located north-west of Portico d'Ottavia where some remains have been found that probably belonged to it. According to the Greek myth Hercules helped the Gods in defeating the Giants (see a relief at Delphi) and the Muses crowned him for this accomplishment.

Fragment showing buildings in Rione Pigna: (porticus DIVOrum and porticus meLEaGRI) and an adjoining lost fragment which is known because it was drawn by Bellori (see above), perhaps showing a lost small temple to Athena / Minerva, after which S. Maria sopra Minerva was named

The fire of Titus, a.d. 80, damaged considerably the Diribitorium, the portico of Octavia, the Temple of Isis and Serapis, the Saepta Iulia, the Admiralty (Neptunium), the Baths of Agrippa, the Pantheon, and, of course, the public and private buildings of secondary importance wedged in among the great ones. Some of them, like the Diribitorium, were abandoned forever; others repaired by Domitian. (..) Diribitorium, an edifice where the bulletins of voters on election days were verified and sorted by a committee of nine hundred delegates, - an operation described by the technical verb diribire (= dis-hibere). The Diribitorium was the largest "roofed" hall in Rome. Its position is not known. Lanciani
Domitian erected two small temples to his deified father and brother inside a large porticoed courtyard (Porticus Divorum), which probably contained a small temple to Athena / Minerva, a goddess to whom the Emperor dedicated his forum. Porticus Meleagri was part of Saepta Iulia, a very large space where the people of Rome assembled for the election of their representatives. The portico was named after paintings portraying the deeds of Meleager, in particular the killing the Calydonian Boar.

Fragment (outside the main hall) showing a temple to Faustina the Younger, wife of Emperor Marcus Aurelius which might have existed on the site of the Palatine where the Severian Emperors built a new large Domus

Some fragments are still puzzling archaeologists because they show monuments which are not mentioned by ancient writers. Emperor Antoninus Pius erected a grand temple in the Foro Romano to his deceased wife (Faustina the Elder) and it is possible that Marcus Aurelius did the same for his deceased wife (Faustina the Younger) near Domus Flavia / Augustana on the Palatine. The temple was depicted in the marble plan but shortly after it might have been pulled down to make room for the new buildings added by the Severian dynasty. This is for the time being the hypothesis put forward by the curators of the museum.

A fragment (outside the main hall) the location of which has not been identified

Of the 700 total fragments of the map the locations of only 200 have been identified. Some of the largest unidentified fragments are on display in a room next to the main hall. They show that archaeologists have still a lot of work to do to complete our knowledge of the topography of Ancient Rome.