Re: AutoSTONE/forma urbis

Brian, thanks for bringing the Forma Urbis Romae to the attention of this
list. I have been aware of the fragments for a few years now, and I have
done reasonable research into Piranesi?s use of the anciant large plan as he
was drawing/etching the Ichnographiam Campi Martii. I further offer some
more info on the Forma Urbis:

from:
Samuel Ball Platner, _The Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome_ (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1904) pp. 2-5.

The Capitoline Plan (Forma Urbis Romae). -- North of the Sacra via and a
short distance east of the forum of Augustus, the emperor Vespasian erected
a structure called in the middle ages templum sacrae Urbis, which seems to
have been used as a repository for municipal records and archives,
particularly the results of the census and survey of the city, which were
made by that emperor in the years 73-75. The north wall of this temple was
covered with marble blocks, on which was engraved a map or plan of the whole
city. This plan may have been copied in part from an earlier one made by
Agrippa, but was probably based on Vespasian?s new data.

The temple was burned in the fire of Commodus in 191 and restored by
Severus, and to its north wall was again affixed a similar plan, either
entirely new or containing fragments of the earlier one. The temple itself
was incorporated with the temple of Romulus, the son of Maxentius, and made
over into the church of SS Cosma e Damiano between the years 526 and 530.
During the years 1559-1565, a large number of fragments of this plan were
found at the foot of the wall of the temple, and came into the possession of
the Farnese family. In 1742 [Piranesi first came to Rome in 1740 as a
draftsmen to the Venitian ambassador to the court of Pope Benedict XIV] they
were transfered to the Capitoline Museum, where they were fastened to the
walls of the main stairway. Soon after the discovery of these fragments,
drawings were made of 92 of the principle pieces [Piranesi includes many of
his own drawings of the fragments within some of the plates of his
archeological publications], and as many of the pieces themselves were lost
in the transfer to the Capitoline Museum, restorations made from these
drawings were put up in their place. These restorations are marked with a
star.

In 1867, a few more fragments were found on the same spot. In 1882, a piece
containing a plan of the vicus Tuscus was found in the Forum; in 1884
another fragment, also in the Forum; and in 1888 more than one hundred and
eighty pieces, mostly small and insignificant, were found behind the palazzo
Farnese which may have belonged to those discovered in the sixteenth
century, but they do not appear on any of the drawings made at that time. In
1891 about 25 fragments were discovered at the foot of the wall of the
temple; and the recent excavations in the Forum (1899-1901) have brought to
light about 400 more pieces, mostly very small.

The wall on which the plan was fastened is still standing, and measures 22
meters in length and 15 in height, so that the surface covered by the plan
was something more than 300 square meters. The blocks of marble varied from
.7 to 1.18 meters in length, and from 1.7 to 2.25 meters in width, their
thickness also being unequal. The scale on which the map is drawn varies
even within the limits of the same structure, but seems to have been in
general 1 to 250. If this scale had been employed throughout, the whole city
could not have been represented on this wall, but some of the parts were
considerable compressed. The plan was not set up with the north at the top,
as is now the custom, but at the bottom. It seems probably that most of the
plan was placed so that the southeast was at the top. Thios arrangement was
not carried out with perfect consistency, and a variation of as much as 45
degrees must be allowed in some of the fragments. Names of public buildings
are given, but not always those of streets and squares. The details of
buildings are not accurately given, nor is the proper proportion always
preserved. Not withstanding these defects, the plan served its purpose well,
and its fragments have been of great assistence in identifying existing
ruins.