But counting maps would miss the difference in Maier’s approach. To invoke xkcd, this is depth-first rather than breadth-first: there are fewer maps here, but they’re discussed in much more depth than the two-page spreads of the hundred-map books, and provided with much more context. This is a history of Rome in maps in which history, Rome and maps all get their proper share of attention.

The Eternal City is divided into ten chapters, covering Rome from antiquity to the present. Each of those chapters explores not just an era but a theme via close study of three or four maps. The chapter themes can sometimes transcend the chapter periods: the first chapter, for example, talks about how Rome has been delineated by its walls, and discusses how walls have defined what is and isn’t Rome; Chapter Two’s discussion of Roman travel networks invokes not only the Tabula Peutingeriana, but also Sasha Trubetskoy’s Tube map of the Roman road network.

Maier also asks deeply historical questions: in Chapter Seven and Eight, which discuss tourism by the leisure class (i.e., Grand Tours) and mass tourism (exemplified by package tours and Baedeker guides), respectively, the question of these maps’ audience—where do these maps come from, and who were they produced for—gets considered, which is something I’d like to see more of. And in her close study of Antonio Tempesta’s 1593 bird’s-eye view of Rome, she notes what is omitted (the sex workers’ quarter) and what is deemphasized (the Jewish ghetto).

Maier’s art-historian approach manages to extract the big picture from a close study of historical images. We are always reminded that maps are a means to understanding their object: in these maps that object is the city of Rome, but the Rome being perceived by one map is not necessarily the Rome seen by another. Rome as historical site, as cultural capital, as tourism destination—and yes, as a place real people actually live—exist at once. For Maier, Rome is a cartographic palimpsest.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

Featured image: Hartmann Schedel, Liber chronicarium (1493), from The Eternal City, pp. 68-69. Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection.

The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps
by Jessica Maier
University of Chicago Press, 24 Nov 2020 (U.S.), 7 Dec 2020 (U.K.)
Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

I received as review copies the following books from the University of Chicago Press, both now available:

In The Eternal City: A History of Rome in Maps, Jessica Maier “considers Rome through the eyes of mapmakers and artists who have managed to capture something of its essence over the centuries. Viewing the city as not one but ten ‘Romes,’ she explores how the varying maps and art reflect each era’s key themes. Ranging from modest to magnificent, the images comprise singular aesthetic monuments like paintings and grand prints as well as more popular and practical items like mass-produced tourist plans, archaeological surveys, and digitizations.” Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

Edited by Kären Wigen and Caroline Winterer, Time in Maps: From the Age of Discovery to Our Digital Era collects nine essays on the “ingenious and provocative ways” maps have attempted to depict time. “Focusing on maps created in Spanish America, Europe, the United States, and Asia, these essays take us from the Aztecs documenting the founding of Tenochtitlan, to early modern Japanese reconstructing nostalgic landscapes before Western encroachments, to nineteenth-century Americans grappling with the new concept of deep time.” Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop

Related: Map Books of 2020.