41.8933°N / 12.4829°E · Italy
Rome is recognisable by two concentric rings seventeen centuries apart. The Aurelian Walls draw a closed circle of nineteen kilometres; much further out, the Grande Raccordo Anulare loops sixty-eight. Between the two, straight roads leave the ancient gates and run out into the countryside.
You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.
The Tiber does not cross Rome in a line: it winds around it in a double bend, with the Isola Tiberina set in the middle of the curve, between Trastevere and the old centre. On the right bank, the enclave of the Vatican pierces the urban fabric: it is an independent state, not a district of Rome. And the seven hills all lie east of the river, which excludes the Janiculum and the Vatican, contrary to what is often written.
You have to choose one ring, and only one. Held tight on the Aurelian Walls, the frame keeps the Tiber from north to south, the Vatican at the left edge, Trastevere and the Janiculum, and the whole circle of the walls. Held wide on the Grande Raccordo Anulare, it keeps the outer ring complete, but the centre becomes a dense patch with no texture. The intermediate zoom is the real trap of this map: it loses both. The opening frame takes the first.
A muted red ochre for the buildings, a cream travertine for the great axes and squares, and above all the Tiber at a mid value, not a dark one: in Rome the river is narrow, and darkening it turns it into a black crack instead of a curve. The contrast should stay warm and close. This is a city of render and brick, not of glass and slate.
Portrait or square, never a stretched landscape: the city is radial, it draws itself around a centre. And you have to choose one ring, only one. Held tight on the Aurelian Walls, keep the Tiber from north to south, the Vatican at the left edge, Trastevere and the Janiculum, and the whole circle of the walls, uncut. Held wide on the Grande Raccordo Anulare, you get the complete outer ring but a centre reduced to a dense patch. The intermediate zoom loses both. And if you are looking for the geometric centre of the city, it is not the Colosseum but the Capitol.
The title, a line beneath it, the coordinates. The name of a via, a date, the name of a piazza: that line is what turns a plan of Rome into your plan of Rome.
Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.
Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.
It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.
The Aurelian Walls run nineteen kilometres and enclose thirteen point seven square kilometres. Built from 271 to 275, three and a half metres thick and eight metres high, their height was doubled to sixteen metres in the fourth century. Around the year 500 they counted three hundred and eighty-three towers and eighteen main gates. On a map today, their line still reads as a closed ring around the old centre.
The trident of Piazza del Popolo is composed around the Via del Corso, the ancient Via Lata: the Via di Ripetta was opened by Leo X in 1518, the Via del Babuino in 1525. The Egyptian obelisk from Heliopolis, brought to Rome by Augustus in the year 1 BC, was replanted there by Domenico Fontana in 1589, as part of the urban plan of Sixtus V. It is the one place on the map where three axes diverge from a single vertex.
The Tiber is now enclosed between high stone walls whose construction began in 1876. So this is not the river the ancient city knew: those walls buried Rome’s old relationship with its water. The Tiber is four hundred and six kilometres long, the third river of Italy and the longest in central Italy, and Rome lies about twenty-five kilometres from the sea, on its eastern bank.
Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.
From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.
Four, from the barest to the most dressed.
Allow 1 to 4 working days for making, up to 7 for hand-assembled frames and canvases, then 1 to 6 working days in transit with standard delivery.
Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece is emailed to you as soon as you order.
The street that climbs to the Janiculum, the bridge you crossed in the evening, the square where you sat. The ring is the same for everyone. What you keep inside it is not.
Compose my Rome poster
