Spatial Networks

It is not clear at what point the idea of recording planned itineraries through the city occurred to Vasi. His pocket sized travel guide, Itinerario di Roma, was published two years after the last volume of the Magnificenze and records eight one day excursions. The text includes 390 sites, with occasional reduced images that duplicate many of the places from the Magnificenze but also includes new sites not touched upon in the latter. The spatial mapping of the itineraries is shown as part of this website along with references to related sites.

His large Panorama of the city (discussed elsewhere) published in 1765 uses the same index as the Itinerario, underscoring the relationship between the two. The Piccola Pianta of 1771 and Grande Piante of 1781 published the year before his death would seem to make logical companions to this travelogue, although he did he not mark the itinerari on either of these maps. Despite the increased size and detail, neither map compares favorably to the 1676 paraline (whereby parallel lines remain parallel) map of the city by Falda upon which it was based. Certainly his maps appears crude when compared to Nolli’s 1748 ichnographic Pianta Grande.

While Vasi does not single out itinerari in the Magnificenze as a conscious way of organizing the plates, he does document key station points along important streets and processional routes. Therefore it is possible for an observer to create views along significant pathways. For example, Vasi shows 15 views along the Via Flaminia (from Ponte Milvio to the Piazza Venezia); 8 views traqce the Via Trinitatis (from the Piazza di Spagna to the Ponte S. Angelo) and almost 30 views follow the Via Papale as it traverses the entire length of the city from St. Peters to the S. Giovanni in Laterano.