Map of Rome. Engraving by Mattheus Merian based on Antonio Tempesta's map of 1593
This delightful representation of the city of Rome as viewed from the Janiculum Hill was engraved in the mid-1600s by Mattheus Merian. It reproduces the perspective map drawn “from life” by Antonio Tempesta in 1593. The map depicts Rome at the end of the sixteenth century, including the major urban transformations undertaken under the papacies of Gregory XIII and Sixtus V, with wide, straight roads connecting the city’s main hubs, and the tall obelisks that Sixtus V had erected in St Peter’s Square, the Lateran, St Mary Major and Piazza del Popolo. The map lacks a number of monuments that later became symbols of the city but had not yet been built at that time: Bernini’s colonnade in St Peter’s Square, the Fontana dei Fiumi in Piazza Navona, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.
Antonio Tempesta (draw.), Mattheus Merian (engr.), Roma, in: Martin Zeiller, Itinerarium Italiae nov-antiquae..., Frankfurt am Main 1640