Piano Regolatore Città di Roma

Description

Interesting city plan of Rome, published during the immediate post-unification period of Italian history. This was a time of tension between the papacy and the royal family — dubbed the “Roman Question” — in which successive popes refused to leave Vatican City in protest. Post-Risorgimento Italy was in a sense a new country, and had to figure things out on the fly. For the royalists, of course, it was a time of celebration, and we see on the map the area marked for the construction of the Vittoriano, derisively referred to today as Vittorio Emanuele II’s “Wedding Cake.”

All of Rome’s great ancient ruins and Renaissance churches are found on this excellent map, which folds up on its original linen into its original slip case.