Tempesta’s Rome Recut: Renewing an Urban Icon

In 1662, Roman editore Giovanni Giacomo de’ Rossi published an updated version of Antonio Tempesta’s famous 1593 bird’s-eye view of Rome. In many ways, this move was standard practice: important images of the city were commonly copied or reprinted, and Tempesta’s original had been reissued multiple times. De’ Rossi’s version of 1662 was more than an incrementally revised restrike, however. In the title, he claimed it to show Tempesta’s prototype “recut, embellished, and enlarged” (rintagliato, abbellito ed accresciutto), and for once this language seems to reflect more than a rhetorical flourish. This essay shows, rather, that it was a meaningful reflection of process—one that leads, in turn, to many new questions. What was the lasting value of Tempesta’s view: what made it worth painstakingly refashioning for the present? Where did resemblance leave off and rupture begin? This essay seeks answers to these questions in interfamilial feuds and in the cut-throat world of Roman publishers as they sought novel ways to hitch their own reputations to that of their city. Among other challenges, they had to balance Rome’s illustrious antiquity with its shape-shifting modernity, and to attract an increasingly international market while catering to their local patrons and protectors. Ultimately, the significance of Tempesta’s image transcends any original author and moment. Its complex afterlife suggests a web of competing interests, as well as a cycle of decline and renewal, very much like that of Rome itself.