Giambattista Nolli

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Giambattista Nolli (or Giovanni Battista, April 9, 1701 – July 1, 1756) was an Italian architect and surveyor.

Born in Como, he moved to Rome through the knowledge he had had with members of the patrician Albani and Corsini families. He is best known for his ichnographic plan of Rome, the Pianta Grande di Roma which he began surveying in 1736 and engraved in 1748, now universally known as the Nolli Map. The map is composed of 12 copper plate engravings that together measures 176x208 cms and was published in response to the commission of Pope Benedict XIV to survey Rome in order to help create demarcations for the 14 traditional rioni or districts.^[1]It was by far the most accurate description of Rome produced to date at a time when the architectural achievement of the Papacy was in full flower.

The Nolli map reflects Bufalini's map of 200 years earlier (1551), with which Nolli readily invited comparison, but Nolli made a number of important innovations. Firstly, Nolli reorients the city from east (which was conventional at the time) to magnetic north, reflecting Nolli's reliance on the compass to get a bearing on the city's topography. Secondly, though he follows Bufalini in using a figure-ground representation of built space with blocks and building shaded in a dark poché, Nolli represents enclosed public spaces such as the colonnades in St. Peter's Square and the Pantheon as open civic spaces. Finally, the map was a significant improvement in accuracy, even noting the asymmetry of the Spanish Steps. The map was used in government planning for the city of Rome until the 1970s.^[2]The Nolli map was used as a base map for all Roman mapping and planning right up to the 1970s.

The map is framed with a vedute by Stefano Pozzi. A scaled-down edition, a collaboration between Nolli and Giovanni Battista Piranesi, was published in the same year the original map was finished. Piranesi was instrumental in getting the work printed; Giuseppe Vasi also contributed.

As an architect, he worked on the churches of San Dorotea in Trastevere (1751–1756) and Sant'Alessio on the Aventine Hill (1743).

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

There have been a number of facsimile editions of the Nolli Map, two are listed here:

• 'The Nolli Plan of Rome: Facsimile', Full-size facsimile portfolio and poster; intro. Allen Ceen, Architectura & Natura Press, Netherlands, 1991.
• 'The New Plan of Rome' By James Tice and Erik Steiner, University of Oregon Press, USA, 2006.

[edit] External links

• Interactive Nolli Map Website from the University of Oregon.
• 'The Nolli Plan of Rome: Facsimile', Full-size facsimile portfolio; introductory essay, "Portrait of a City," by Allen Ceen, published by J.H. Aronson, Highmount, NY, USA. First ed., 1984, 2nd ed., 1991.
• 'The Nolli Plan of Rome: Poster', Half-size poster based on facsimile portfolio, published by J.H. Aronson, Highmount, NY, USA, 1984.