Giuseppe Vasi's 1781 Map of Rome
- ️romeartlover
with links to his etchings
(a detail of the map showing Castel Sant'Angelo)
Some of the seven hills on which Rome was built, appear now but gentle swellings, owing to the intervals between them being greatly raised by the rubbish of ruined houses. Some have hardly houses of any kind upon them, being entirely laid out in gardens and vineyards. It is generally thought, that two-thirds of the surface within the walls are in this situation, or covered with ruins; and, by the information I have the greatest reliance on, the number of the inhabitants at present is about one hundred and seventy thousand, which, though greatly inferior to what Rome contained in the days of its ancient power, is more than it has been, for the most part, able to boast since the fall of the Empire. There is good authority for believing that this city, at particular periods since that time, some of them not very remote, has been reduced to between thirty and forty thousand inhabitants. The numbers have gradually increased during the whole of this century. (..) Great part of the modern city is built on what was the ancient Campus Martius.
John Moore - A View of Society and Manners in Italy - 1781
Clickable division of the Map in 16 sections: C1 and D4 do not contain monuments and therefore they are not clickable
The Map is one of Vasi's last works. It is not a map in a technical sense, it is rather a bird's eye view
with more than 300 points of interest clearly identified.
The view is taken
from the West, so top is East, left is North and right is South.
Section A1 - Villa Albani
Section A2 - Porta Pia
Section A3 - Porta S. Lorenzo
Section A4 - S. Croce in Gerusalemme
Section B1 - Villa Giulia
Section B2 - Trinit� de' Monti
Section B3 - Palazzo del Quirinale
Section B4 - Terme Antoniane
Section C2 - Porto di Ripetta
Section C3 - Isola Tiberina
Section C4 - Porta S. Paolo
Section D1 - Porta Angelica
Section D2 - S. Pietro
Section D3 - Porta S. Pancrazio
From each section you can then reach Vasi's etchings showing the monuments of that section.