The 1748 Nolli map of Rome, regarded by scholars and cartographers as one of the most important historical

documents of the city, serves to geo-reference a vast body of information to better understand the Eternal City
and its key role in shaping Western Civilization.

Background

Giambattista Nolli (1701-1756) was an architect and surveyor who lived in Rome and devoted his life to
documenting the architectural and urban foundations of the city. The fruit of his labor, La Pianta Grande di Roma
("the great plan of Rome") is one of the most revealing and artistically designed urban plans of all time. The Nolli
map is an ichnographic plan map of the city, as opposed to a bird’s eye perspective, which was the dominant
cartographic representation style prevalent before his work. Not only was Nolli one of the first people to
construct an ichnographic map of Rome, his unique perspective has been copied ever since.

The map depicts the city in astonishing detail. Nolli accomplished this by using scientific surveying techniques,
careful base drawings, and minutely prepared engravings. The map's graphic representations include a precise
architectural scale, as well as a prominent compass rose, which notes both magnetic and astronomical north. The
Nolli map is the first accurate map of Rome since antiquity and captures the city at the height of its cultural and
artistic achievements. The historic center of Rome has changed little over the last 250 years; therefore, the Nolli
map remains one of the best sources for understanding the contemporary city.

Features of the Nolli Map

The Nolli map consists of twelve exquisitely engraved copper plates that measure approximately six feet high and
seven feet wide when combined (176 cm by 208 cm). The map includes almost eight square miles of the densely-
built city as well as the surrounding terrain. It also identifies nearly two thousand sites of cultural significance.
Nolli’s map is an extraordinary technical achievement that represents a milestone in the art and science of
cartography. Modern surveys and sophisticated satellite images have confirmed the accuracy of Nolli’s map
within the very smallest margin of error. The map not only records the streets, squares and public urban spaces
of Rome, but Nolli carefully renders hundreds of building interiors with detailed plans. The detail of the map
representation ensures the map's continuing value as a unique historical document, and it gives the viewer a
glimpse into the ancient metropolitan center during one of its most illustrious periods.

The Nolli Map

The significance of the Nolli map for historians, scholars, students and practicing architects is that it gives a
unique view of Rome’s "innate character." It vividly reveals the topographic and spatial structure of the city,
countering a tendency in contemporary architectural history and criticism to examine objects as isolated
monuments outside the very context that give them life and meaning. The principle ideas that animate the Nolli
map can be summarized as follows:

Plan vs. Pictorial Representation

The Nolli map, as an ichnographic plan, presents the city with an exactitude that allows one to immediately
compare size, position and shape. This is to be contrasted with a pictorial representation that, because of
perspective diminution of objects of the same size, convergence of lines, and overlapping shapes necessarily
distorts the image in order to simulate a perceptual point of view. Undeniably this way of seeing and
understanding the city has advantages and yields an intuitive "feel" much as any picture or photograph might
provide. Nonetheless the Nolli method, like any scaled plan of presentation, has distinct advantages. It provides a
conceptual view that enables a consistent frame of reference based on exact and comparable information and
avoids the perspective distortion and fragmentation noted above and the pre-editing implicit in a singular point
of view.

Solid/Void

The Nolli map provides an immediate and intuitive understanding of the city’s urban form through the simple yet
effective graphic method of rendering solids as dark gray (with hatch marks) and rendering voids as white or light
shades of gray to represent vegetation, paving patterns and the like. The city, thus conceived as an enormous
mass that has been "carved" away to create "outdoor" rooms is rendered intelligible and vivid through this simple
graphic convention.

Topography/Space

Nolli's map conveys an understanding of the city’s topographic and geo-spatial structure, the patterns of private
and public buildings, and their relationship to the entire urban ensemble. This encourages an understanding of
the building, not as isolated event, but one that is deeply and intrinsically embedded in the fabric of the city.

Figure/Ground

The idea of solid/void is closely related to the idea of figure/ground. The dark and light patterns of the city reveal
the manner in which public space in the city is conceived no less carefully than building. In Rome, public or semi-
public space possesses a distinct and identifiable character whether it is a church interior, palace courtyard or
public urban space. The Piazza Navona, for example, is easily identified as a "figural" element in the city, with the
surrounding buildings acting as a back up field or "ground" into which the element has been placed, or rather,
carved away. In contrast, the Modern city reverses this conceptual reading so that building is always seen as
active figural object while space is imagined (if at all) as a kind of recessive, formless ether or receptacle that
provides the setting for the object. In Rome, solid and void readings have the capacity to be interpreted as either
figure or ground.

Urban Dialectics

The Nolli map demonstrates the principle of contextual design evident throughout the city of Rome at the scale
of the building and the scale of the city as a whole. The relationship between "outside and inside" and building
and place are distinctive features that Norberg-Schulz has called the "genius loci" of Rome. The detailed
rendering of streets, piazze and buildings in relationship to one another underscores how profoundly Nolli
understood this quality. The context conditions the building and the building in turn exerts an outward pressure
on the city fabric. The dialectical relationship between buildings and their context—a two way street—suggests a
dynamic interplay between solid and void, figure and ground and the new and the old. The evolution of the city
and its formal and spatial structure, therefore, is seen, not as a static proposition, but rather as a dynamic, highly
charged and even volatile discourse of competing pressures, issues, needs, and desires—both in urban and
human terms.

Nolli map as a tool for small developers

1. Understanding relationships of public and private space

The most important observation a Nolli Map reveals is the clear distinction between public and private space.
This can be further simplified as “places people can go” vs. “places people can’t go”. Distinguishing between the
two affords the developer the power to control all variety of movement in a city: movement of people, goods,
and commerce, essentially crafting the urban experience for its users. Public spaces include streets, squares, and
walks but also porches, yards, commercial space, lobbies, and vestibules of all sorts. Understanding the public
vs.private space relationship—or lack thereof—within a given neighborhood is the foundation for establishing or
fitting into walkable, human-scaled communities.

2. Uncovering the urban and architectural pattern language of a neighborhood.

Cities and neighborhoods have a language. That language is spoken in terms of patterns that organize the places
humans inhabit. A Nolli map will reveal these patterns both on an architectural and urban scale. Streets are the
clearest examples of an urban pattern. They can be organized in a grid, linearly, radially, organically, or some
hybrid of these. Certain architectural patterns will respond to the urban organization. For example at Seaside,
there is an architectural pattern of porches fronting the street, acting as a mediator space between the public
and private realm. As a small developer, fitting into this existing pattern language is essential to positively
nurturing the walkability, sustainability, and functionality of a neighborhood. They are great typological clues to
guide the small developer in what should be built.

3. Understand what’s missing

Sustainable, walkable places have a very legible flow of public space between buildings and the urban realm. They
also have a variety of architectural patterns, because there are different uses required to sustain the
neighborhood. More private spaces like residences will have less public space porosity breaking up their massing
than a commercial space will, where goods and services are exchanged for money. When you create a Nolli Map
of an existing neighborhood all of these things will be revealed and one will be able to determine the components
that are missing. These missing links are perfect opportunities for small scale developers to intervene responsibly
into a neighborhood.