A Literary Tour of Rome

The Morgan Library and Museum has been inspired by August Hare's 1870 guidebook 'Walks in Rome' to create their own interactive map of the eternal city. Hare's original guide to Rome included a wealth of literary quotations about the city's magnificent ancient buildings and monuments. The Morgan Library and Museum's City of the Soul, similarly explores how Rome provided the inspiration for many nineteenth century authors and poets.

The interactive City of the Soul map was created for the museum’s exhibition on Rome and the Romantics.The City of the Soul allows you to explore Rome through the literary insights of a number of nineteenth century writers. If you select one of the city's famous locations on the map you can read from a selection of literary works which were inspired by the chosen building or monument.

The basemap used for the City of the Soul is Paul-Marie Letarouilly’s 1841 city plan. If you like Letarouilly's plan of Rome then you might also enjoy this fully interactive version of Lanciani's Forma Urbis Romae. At the turn of the 20th Century Italian archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani undertook the task of creating a huge detailed map of Rome. A map which would visualize when different parts of the city were built.

Lanciani’s Forma Urbis Romae is color codded to show the different historical epochs when different areas of Rome were built. On the map ancient and medieval Rome is shown in black, early modern Rome in red and the modern city (to Lanciani) is shown in blue.