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TheForma Urbis Romae orSeveran Marble Plan is a massive marblemap of ancientRome, created under the emperorSeptimius Severus between AD 203 and 211. Matteo Cadario gives specific years of 205–208, noting that the map was based on property records.[1]
It originally measured 18 m (60 ft) wide by 13 m (45 ft) high and was carved into 150Proconnesian marble slabs mounted on an interior wall of theTemple of Peace.[2]
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 everytemple,bath, andinsula in the central Roman city.
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.[1]
The Plan was gradually destroyed during theMiddle Ages, with the marble stones being used as building materials or for making lime. In 1562, the young antiquarian sculptorGiovanni Antonio Dosio excavated fragments of theForma Urbis from a site near the Church ofSS. Cosma e Damiano, under the direction of the humanistcondottiere Torquato Conti, who had purchased excavation rights from the canons of the church. Conti made a gift of the recovered fragments to CardinalAlessandro Farnese, who entrusted them to his librarianOnofrio Panvinio and his antiquarianFulvio Orsini. Little interest seems to have been elicited by the marble shards.[3]
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 theForum of Augustus, interpreted as "a working drawing or as a proof of the existence of a more ancientForma Urbis."[1]
Piecing together the surviving fragments of the plan is an activity that has engrossed scholars for centuries.Renaissance scholars managed to match and identify around 250 of the pieces, usually by recognizing famous landmarks such as theColosseum and theCircus Maximus. In the second half of the 20th century, thanks to the works and publications of Guglielmo Gatti,Lucos Cozza, andEmilio Rodríguez Almeida, several fragments of the plan have been identified and located.[citation needed] Other scholars (e.g. Claudia Cecamore, Filippo Coarelli, Daniele Manacorda, Domenico Palombi, Luigi Pedroni, and others) have re-interpreted the topography depicted on many fragments.[citation needed] A research project atStanford University in 2002 had some success in positioning four fragments and in reassembling nine fragments with pattern recognition algorithms.[citation needed] Using archaeological and literary sources, since 1996 Pier Luigi Tucci (Johns Hopkins University) has positioned twenty-four fragments in five Augustan regions and has offered new interpretations[citation needed] of the area of the AQVEDVCTIVM on the Caelian hill, of the Republican building inopus incertum at Testaccio (withLucos Cozza), and of the area of theCircus Flaminius (in particular, the ship of Aeneas[clarification needed] and the earlier marble plan from the Via Anicia).
A new piece ofForma Urbis Romae that completes the words "Circus Flaminius" was uncovered in 2014 at the Palazzo Maffei Marescotti, a building owned by the Vatican.[4][5]
The Forma Urbis has gone on display in 2024 under a glass floor at the new Museum of the Forma Urbis near the Colosseum. It is part of a bigger project of the Archaeological Park of the Celio to develop the area around the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill and Colosseum.[6]
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