Digital Guidebooks to Rome

Thanks to the Digitization and Digital Curation Team of Emory Libraries several of the bound volumes in the exhibition are available for viewing online. Simply click on a title to open the link and page through five guidebooks to the Eternal City from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries and two detailed studies of ancient monuments by Giovanni Pietro Bellori.
Bernardo Gamucci (Italian, active mid-sixteenth century)
Published 1580, Venice
The first illustrated guidebook written in Italian at the time of its first printing in 1569. The guide is arranged in four sections that reflect principal areas of the city and their antiquities.
Girolamo Franzini (Italian, 1537-1596)
Published 1625, Rome
This volume is divided into two distinct parts. The first part is an illustrated guide to the seven principal pilgrimage churches of Rome with a list of popes. The second part is Andrea Palladio's guide to Rome's antiquities (first published in 1554) with illustrations and a list of distances between Rome and other Italian locales.
Fioravante Martinelli (Italian, 1599-1677)
Published 1658, Rome
A ten-day, illustrated itinerary that covers both contemporary and ancient Rome, beginning with the area of the Vatican.
Alessandro Donati (Italian, 1584-1640)
Published 1725, Rome
Combines learned commentary, illustrations, and maps to present the history of the ancient city and its structures, both reconstructed and the contemporary state of their remains. The first three parts of the volume address the historical development of the city from its founding by Romulus, the Capitoline Hill, and the Palatine Hill. The fourth part of the volume describes building activities of the popes.
Roma antica e moderna - Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3
Gregorio Roisecco (Italian, active mid-eighteenth century)
Published 1750, Rome
The first two volumes of this guidebook cover contemporary and ancient Rome and are arranged according to rione or region of the city. The third volume is a cultural and historical account of rites, famous wars and illustrious families of the ancient Romans with a list of kings, consuls, and emperors.
Bellori's very detailed, scene-by-scene depictions of the Column of Trajan and the Column of Marcus Aurelius (also includes the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius):
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (Italian, 1613-1696)
Published 1673, Rome
Giovanni Pietro Bellori (Italian, 1613-1696)
Published 1704, Rome