Forma Urbis
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The ''Forma Urbis Romae'' or Severan Marble Plan is a massive marble
map A map is a symbolic depiction emphasizing relationships between elements of some space, such as objects, regions, or themes. Many maps are static, fixed to paper or some other durable medium, while others are dynamic or interactive. Although ...
of ancient
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
, created under the emperor
Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa (Roman province), Africa. As a young man he advanced thro ...
between 203 and 211. Matteo Cadario gives specific years of 205–208, noting that the map was based on property records. It originally measured 18 m (60 ft) wide by 13 m (45 ft) high and was carved into 150
Proconnesian Marmara Island ( ) is a Turkish island in the Sea of Marmara. With an area of it is the largest island in the Sea of Marmara and is the second largest island of Turkey after Gökçeada (older name in Turkish: ; el, Ίμβρος, links=no ''Im ...
marble slabs mounted on an interior wall of the Temple of Peace. Created at a scale of approximately 1 to 240 (Cadario states 1:260 to 1:270), the map was detailed enough to show the floor plans of nearly every
temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...
, bath, and '' insula'' in the central Roman city. The boundaries of the plan were decided based on the available space on the marble, instead of by geographical or political borders as modern maps usually are. The map was oriented with south at the top. On the map are names and plans of public buildings, streets, and private homes. The creators used signs and details like columns and staircases. The Plan was gradually destroyed during the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
, with the marble stones being used as building materials or for making lime. In 1562, the young antiquarian sculptor
Giovanni Antonio Dosio Giovanni Antonio Dosio (1533–1611) was an Italian architect and sculptor. Biography Dosio was born in San Gimignano. A student of Ammanati, with whom he realized the Villa dell'Ambrogiana, Dosio worked primarily in Rome (1548–75) and Flo ...
excavated fragments of the ''Forma Urbis'' from a site near the Church of
SS. Cosma e Damiano The basilica of Santi Cosma e Damiano is a titular church in Rome, Italy. The lower portion of the building is accessible through the Roman Forum and incorporates original Roman buildings, but the entrance to the upper level is outside the Forum ...
, under the direction of the humanist ''
condottiere ''Condottieri'' (; singular ''condottiero'' or ''condottiere'') were Italian captains in command of mercenary companies during the Middle Ages and of multinational armies during the early modern period. They notably served popes and other Europe ...
'' Torquato Conti, who had purchased excavation rights from the canons of the church. Conti made a gift of the recovered fragments to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who entrusted them to his librarian
Onofrio Panvinio The erudite Augustinian Onofrio Panvinio or Onuphrius Panvinius (23 February 1529 – 27 April 1568) was an Italian historian and antiquary, who was librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Life and work Panvinio was born in Verona. At the ...
and his antiquarian
Fulvio Orsini Fulvio Orsini (11 December 1529 – 18 May 1600) was an Italian humanist, historian, and archaeologist. He was a descendant of the Orsini family, one of the oldest, most illustrious, and for centuries most powerful of the Roman princely families, ...
. Little interest seems to have been elicited by the marble shards. In all about 10% of the original surface area of the plan has since been recovered in the form of over one thousand marble fragments. Part of the excavated plan showed a portion of the
Forum of Augustus The Forum of Augustus ( la, Forum Augustum; it, Foro di Augusto) is one of the Imperial fora of Rome, Italy, built by Augustus (). It includes the Temple of Mars Ultor. The incomplete forum and its temple were inaugurated in 2 BC, 40 years after ...
, interpreted as "a working drawing or as a proof of the existence of a more ancient ''Forma Urbis''."


Projects

Piecing together the surviving fragments of the plan is an activity that has engrossed scholars for centuries.
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
scholars managed to match and identify around 250 of the pieces, usually by recognizing famous landmarks such as the
Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world to ...
and the
Circus Maximus The Circus Maximus (Latin for "largest circus"; Italian: ''Circo Massimo'') is an ancient Roman chariot-racing stadium and mass entertainment venue in Rome, Italy. In the valley between the Aventine and Palatine hills, it was the first and lar ...
. In the second half of the 20th century, thanks to the works and publications of Guglielmo Gatti,
Lucos Cozza Lucos Cozza (born in Rome, Italy, on 11 April 1921 – 27 June 2011) was a Roman archaeologist. Born in Rome, Cozza was the son of the sculptor, count Lorenzo Cozza (Orvieto 1877 - Roma 1965), and the grandson of archaeologist Adolfo Cozza (Orvi ...
, and
Emilio Rodríguez Almeida Emilio may refer to: * Emilio Navaira, a Mexican-American singer often called "Emilio" * Emilio Piazza Memorial School, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State * Emilio (given name) * ''Emilio'' (film), a 2008 film by Kim Jorgensen See also * Emílio (dis ...
, several fragments of the plan have been identified and located. Other scholars (e.g. Claudia Cecamore, Filippo Coarelli, Daniele Manacorda, Domenico Palombi, Luigi Pedroni, David West Reynolds, and others) have re-interpreted the topography depicted on many fragments. A research project at
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 2002 had some success in positioning four fragments and in reassembling nine fragments with pattern recognition algorithms. Using archaeological and literary sources, since 1996 Pier Luigi Tucci (
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
) has positioned twenty-four fragments in five Augustan regions and has offered new interpretations of the area of the AQVEDVCTIVM on the Caelian hill, of the Republican building in ''opus incertum'' at Testaccio (with
Lucos Cozza Lucos Cozza (born in Rome, Italy, on 11 April 1921 – 27 June 2011) was a Roman archaeologist. Born in Rome, Cozza was the son of the sculptor, count Lorenzo Cozza (Orvieto 1877 - Roma 1965), and the grandson of archaeologist Adolfo Cozza (Orvi ...
), and of the area of the
Circus Flaminius The Circus Flaminius was a large, circular area in ancient Rome, located in the southern end of the Campus Martius near the Tiber River. It contained a small race-track used for obscure games, and various other buildings and monuments. It was "bui ...
(in particular, the ship of Aeneas and the earlier marble plan from the Via Anicia). A new piece of ''Forma Urbis Romae'' that completes the words "Circus Flaminius" was uncovered in 2014 at the Palazzo Maffei Marescotti, a building owned by the Vatican.https://www.comune.roma.it/resources/cms/documents/forma_urbis_comunicato.pdf


See also

* * ''
Porticus Vipsania The ''Porticus Vipsania'' was a map of the world once displayed in the Campus Agrippae, located in Rome, not far from the Via Flaminia. It was designed by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and constructed by his sister Vipsania Polla after Agrippa died. T ...
''


References


Sources

*
Henri Jordan Henri Jordan (30 September 1833, Berlin – 10 November 1886, Königsberg) was a German classical scholar who specialized in Roman archaeological topography. He was a son-in-law to historian Johann Gustav Droysen. He attended Joachimsthalsche ...
''Forma Urbis Romae. Regionum XIIII'' (Berlin, 1874) * Carettoni, Gianfilippo; Colini, Antonio; Cozza, Lucos; and Gatti, Guglielmo, eds. ''La pianta marmorea di Roma antica. Forma urbis Romae'' (Rome, 1960) * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Aggiornamento topografico dei colli Oppio, Cispio e Viminale secondo la Forma Urbis marmorea". Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia romana di Archeologia Vol XLVIII. Anni Accademici 1975–1976,: pp. 263–278 (Roma, 1976). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Forma Urbis marmorea. Nuovi elementi di analisi e nuove ipotesi di lavoro", in '' Mélanges de l'École française de Rome'' 89/1: pp. 219–256 (Roma, 1977). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Miscellanea sulla «Forma Urbis» marmorea"; + Rodríguez Almeida, E. "Il Campo Marzio settentrionale: «Solarium» e «Pomerium»"; in Rendiconti Accademia Romana di Archeologia – III serie Vol. LI-LII. Anni Accademici 1978–1979 e 1979–1980, (Roma, 1980). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Forma Urbis Marmorea. Aggiornamento Generale" 1980, 2 vol., (Roma 1981). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Un nuovo frammento della Forma Urbis Marmorea". Analecta Romana Istituti Danici, Suppl. 10: pp. 87–92 (Roma, 1983). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Un frammento di una nuova pianta marmorea di Roma". Journal of Roman Archaeology (1): pp. 120–131 (Portsmouth, 1988). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Novità minori dalla Forma Urbis marmorea". Ostraka 1 (1): pp. 55–80, (Roma, 1992). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Diversi problemi connessi con la lastra n. 37 della Forma Urbis Marmorea e con la topografia in Circo e in Campo", in Rendiconti Accademia Romana di Archeologia, in III serie Vol. LXIV. Anno Accademico 1991–1992 (Roma, 1992). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Euristica materiale e forma marmorea: alcuni falsi problemi" + Rodríguez Almeida, E. "Aemiliana", in Rendiconti Accademia Romana di Archeologia, III serie Vol. LXVIII. Anno Accademico 1995–1996, (Roma, 1996). * Rodríguez Almeida, Emilio. "Forma urbis antiquae, Le mappe marmoree di Roma tra la repubblica e Settimio Severo". Collection de l'École française de Rome 305/2002, (Roma, 2002). * Meneghini, Roberto; Santangeli Valenzani, Riccardo (eds), Formae Urbis Romae. Nuovi frammenti di piante marmoree dallo scavo dei Fori Imperiali (Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma, Suppl. 15) (Rome, 2006) 99–101 (bibliography on the Forma Urbis between 1960 and 2006) * Tucci, Pier Luigi, ‘New fragments of ancient plans of Rome’, ''
Journal of Roman Archaeology The ''Journal of Roman Archaeology'' (JRA) is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the archaeology of the Roman empire. It was established in 1988 and the publisher and editor-in-chief is J.H. Humphrey. The journal was originally published ...
'' 20 (2007) 469-80 (a review of Meneghini – Santangeli Valenzani 2006) * Tucci, Pier Luigi, ‘Dov’erano il tempio di Nettuno e la nave di Enea?’, ''Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma'' 98 (1997) 15–42; * Tucci, Pier Luigi, ‘Ideology and technology in Rome’s water supply: castella, the toponym AQVEDVCTIVM, and supply to the Palatine and Caelian hill’, ''Journal of Roman Archaeology'' 19 (2006) 94–120; * Tucci, Pier Luigi (with Lucos Cozza), ‘Navalia’, ''Archeologia Classica'' 57 (2006) 175–202; * Tucci, Pier Luigi, ‘Imagining the temple of Castor and Pollux in circo Flaminio’, in A. Leone, D. Palombi, S. Walker (eds), Res Bene Gestae. Ricerche di storia urbana su Roma antica in onore di Eva Margareta Steinby (Rome 2007) 411–425; * Tucci, Pier Luigi,‘La controversa storia della Porticus Aemilia’, in ''Archeologia Classica'' 63 (2012) 575–591; * Tucci, Pier Luigi,‘The Pons Sublicius: a reinvestigation’, in ''
Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...
'' 56–57 (2011–2012) 177–212. Tucci's visual analysis of the Forma Urbis, as well as his research on the role of this marble plan in the ''Templum Pacis'', will be published in 2014 (personal communication).


External links


Ancient World Mapping Center, Rome's Marble Plan

Stanford Digital Forma Urbis Romae Project

BBC news
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