The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Nuova pianta di Roma data in luce da Giambattista Nolli l’anno MDCCXLVII, known as La Pianta Grande di Roma

Nuova pianta di Roma data in luce da Giambattista Nolli l’anno MDCCXLVII, known as La Pianta Grande di Roma

1748
(Italian, 1701–1756)
(Italian, 1690–1790)
(Italian, 1701–1774)
(Italian, 1725–c. 1779)
(Italian, 1699–1768)
Sheet: 44.8 x 70.3 cm (17 5/8 x 27 11/16 in.)
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

To make this map, Pope Clement XII granted the mapmaker permission to measure courtyards and other interior, inaccessible spaces in monastic communities, even those in nuns’ convents, which was controversial at the time.

Description

The monumental Pianta Grande di Roma, or Large Plan of Rome, which measures about 5 x 7 feet when its twelve plates are assembled, is a landmark in both cartography and printmaking. The map is considered the first scientific rendering of Rome, establishing new standards of accuracy and thoroughness when it was published in 1748. Devised by the Lombard architect and surveyor Giovanni Battista Nolli (Italian, 1701-56), the creation of the map required over ten years of surveying the city carried out by Nolli and a team of assistants with the help of new measuring devices. In Nolli’s “ichnographic” (also called “ground”) plan, architectural features and the urban infrastructure are reduced to a single horizontal slice, a minutely detailed footprint that conveys dimensions, proportions, and orientations to scale with the utmost clarity.
  • Private Collection, Italy
    In trade, Rome, Italy
    ?-2020
    (Piraneseum, Oakland, CA)
    December 7, 2020
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Ehrle, Francesco. Roma al tempo di Benedetto XIV: la pianta di Roma di Giambattista Nolli del 1748, riprodotta da una copia vaticana. Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1932.
    Borsi, Stefano. Roma di Benedetto XIV: la pianta di Giovan Battista Nolli, 1748. Roma: Officina, 1993.
    Bevilacqua, Mario. Roma nel secolo dei lumi: Architettura erudizione scienza nella Pianta di G.B. Nolli “celebre geometra.” Naples: Mondadori Electa, 1997.
    Nolli, Giambattista, Giuseppe Vasi, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and Mario Bevilacqua. Nolli, Vasi, Piranesi: immagine di Roma antica e moderna : rappresentare e conoscere la metropoli dei lumi. Roma: Artemide, 2004.
    Giambattista Nolli, Imago Urbis and Rome, Ian Verstegen, and Allan Ceen. Giambattista Nolli and Rome: mapping the city before and after the Pianta grande. 2013.
  • {{cite web|title=Nuova pianta di Roma data in luce da Giambattista Nolli l’anno MDCCXLVII, known as La Pianta Grande di Roma|url=false|author=Giovanni Battista Nolli, Carlo Nolli, Rocco Pozzi, Pietro Campana de Soriano, Stefano Pozzi|year=1748|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.276.2