Pirro Ligorio’s “Antiquae Urbis Romae Imago” (Image of the Ancient City of Rome), 1561

In 1551, Pirro Ligorio produced an engraving depicting a reconstruction of ancient Rome; this inventive map was printed by Jacopo Rossi in 1561. Pirro Ligorio was an architect, a painter, a counterfeiter and a scholar who studied and researched the ancient ruins of the city of Rome as well as classical literary sources, fragments and antique inscriptions in order to produce his detailed bird’s-eye view of the ancient city. The ‘Antiquae Urbis Romae Imago accuratissime ex vetustis monumentis formata‘ is an imaginative reconstruction of the city of Rome during the Imperial Age where the distances between the monuments are filled with ordinary houses and buildings.The map synthetizes compositional inventions with the research for archeological accuracy and exploits the perspective view in order to confer an expressive force to the single monuments, a character which is revealed in this map as more important than topographical accuracy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further info and source at ibiblio

Open a fully zoomable map here at Gallica, or at bsrdigitalcollections.