Exploring Art History

Ep. 2. THE ART OF MAPS: A history of Rome in maps - A conversation with Jessica Maier

Published: 6 April 2026 at 17:12 Europe/London

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Episode notes

In this illustrated video podcast art historian Jessica Maier, Mount Holyoke College, talks passionately about her extensive research into the history of Rome through the eyes of mapmakers and artists who have reimagined, reconstructed, and represented Rome and its landmarks over the course of the past three millennia, as The Eternal City changed on the ground.Host: author and filmmaker Howard Burton.

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

1:21 From an antique map store to an academic career in maps

6:30 Flexible membership to the map historian's club

12:56 Alberti's synthesizing treatises on maps in the 15th century

15:39 Detective work to reconstruct Francesco Rosselli's maps

22:21 The Bufalini map of Rome, a hybrid of science and imagination

29:39 Renaissance fashion of mapping past and present together

36:33 A close look at Nolli's satellite-like map and the art framing it

40:35 Vasi's panoramic-style Prospetto map and the stories it tells

47:04 Piranesi's representations of Rome and the Forma Urbis Romae

51:19 Surprising new interpretations of maps and the process of discovery