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Noll Map of Rome

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Noll map of rome

“Nuova Topografia di Roma” (New Topography of Rome), known commonly as the Nolli map of rome
was cre\ted by Giambattista Nollli after twelve years of intense surverying and enrgqaving as a
successor to Leonardo Bufaliani’s map of rome in 1551. It is an important cartographic artifact due to its
representation of open civic spaces. It was also famous fo its accuracy was used in city planning until the
1970s.

The map was commissioned by Pope Benedict XIV as a way to map and subsequently demarcate Rome
into 14 districts. The detail of the map reflected the architectural achievements of Rome and of the
Papacy itself of the time.

The map contains all the features as Nolli saw them in 1748- churches, antique sites, aqueducts,
obelisks, fountains, towers, public buildings, palazzos, city walls and much more. The plan is cut at eye
l;evel, therefore hundreds of buildings are denoted wirh rheir groun dflr. The map was mad across
twelve sheets and with 1320 numbered features.

Nolli reoriented the city to the north, is is used in plans till today. This was done to facilitate the use of
the compass to determine bearings in relation to the city’s layout.

The map uses monochromatic shade to distinguish between figure and ground- an important input in to
modern ctarography. Nolli followed the previous Bufalini map which shaded buildings and other
features in dark while ensuring open public spaces were white. Additionally, he maps the various
colonnades of important public spaces such as St. Peter’s Square in black. He also used black to indicate
monuments and white outlines to show the locations of ancient monuments that no longer exist. S-
shaped curves were used to denote contours and slopes which was before contours were used more
commonly to illustrate elevation. A waterlining effect was used as a vignette for the river and various
symbols used to show locations of other features with qualitative differences indicated through design
(e.g. open and closed drains). The use of such precise illustrative symbols was rare in maps of the time.

The significance of the Nolli map is that Nolli was successful in communictaing Rome’s "innate
character." It is a study in context countering a tendency in architectural history and criticism to
examine objects as isolated monuments outside the very context that give them life and meaning. The
map 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 in photos in
points and view. His graphic method conceives the city as an enormous mass that has been "carved"
away to create "outdoor" space. the city’s topographic and geo-spatial structure, the patterns of private
and public buildings, and their relationship to the entire urban ensemble are also conveyed.

His etching of public spacen signifies that to Nolli, public space or the void was as important- and in
some cases more important thn the struictures themselves. For a city like Rome, puvblci space is full of
character. In the map, 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. Usually, that building is always seen as active figural object while space is imagined as a
kind of recessive, formless ether or receptacle that provides the setting for the object. The relationship
between "outside and inside" and building and place are distinctive features that Norberg-Schulz has
called the "genius loci" of Rome itself. The detailed rendering of streets, piazze and buildings in
relationship to one another underscores how profoundly Nolli understood this quality.This 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 static but dynamic, highly charged
and even volatile.

Pics - http://nolli-app.com/

https://mapdesign.icaci.org/2014/12/mapcarte-356365-the-nolli-map-by-giambattista-nolli-1748/
souyrce+pixcs

http://nolli.uoregon.edu/urbanTheory.html

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