Gismondi & His Model of Imperial Rome

Map

Model of Imperial Rome (Il Plastico di Roma Imperiale) by Italo Gismondi

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On December 2nd 1974, the Roman architect and archaeologist Italo Gismondi (b. 1887) died in the city of his birth. 

Gismondi is famous for creating a scaled model of (1:250) of the city of Rome, as it might have looked at the time of the emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306 - 337 CE).

Il Plastico di Roma Imperiale, as his plaster model came to be known, was commissioned in 1933 by Benito Mussolini, in honour of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Rome's first emperor Augustus (r. 27 BCE - 14 CE).

 In creating the model, Gismondi relied heavily on Rodolfo Lanciani’s map, the Forma Urbis Romae, which was published in 1901. Lanciani’s map was, itself, based on a massive marble map of the ancient city created under the reign of the emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193-211). 

Gismondi worked on the model for over 35 years. Measuring 55 feet by 55 feet, it is on display in the Museum of Roman Civilisation (Museo della Civilta Romana). 

Italo Gismondi was also the head of excavations at Ostia Antica for almost half a century. 

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