Digitally Documenting the Transformation of the Eternal City. Cities in Text: Rome

Abstract

Historical guidebooks and maps of Rome provide both an architectural narrative and a snapshot of the city at distinct historical moments. The Historic Urban Environments Lab at the University of Notre Dame (HUE/ND) combined these resources to create Cities in Text: Rome. This interactive research tool was designed to analyze the complex layers of the Eternal City. It provides access to the digital representation of guidebooks produced in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. These works have been transcribed, translated, and linked with historic and present-day maps, photographs, and drawings presented on a website and mobile application (hue.nd.edu). The project led to several discoveries, including identifying the existing remains of Rome’s medieval residential façade porticoes, which were measured, drawn, and mapped. The work contributes to an understanding of the evolution of Rome’s cityscape, including its medieval fabric wholly ignored in these guides but still visible today.