Campo di Fiori

This view shows one of the busiest squares of XVIIIth century Rome. It did not house an important church or a public building, but many inns, shops and street sellers of cooked food were located there or in the nearby streets. Twice a week it housed a horse and fodder market. Jacket makers had their workshops at the beginning of Via dei Giubbonari , the street which led to S. Carlo ai Catinari. Other nearby streets were named after beccai (butchers), cappellari (hat makers) and baullari (trunk makers).

The gallows is a reminder that Campo dei Fiori, because of its central location, was often chosen for the public punishment of criminals, especially of heretics. It was not used to execute death penalties, but to punish lesser offences or as an instrument of torture. A rope hung from a pulley to which the culprit was tied and then he was raised and lowered to the ground several times; the street leading from Campo dei Fiori to Piazza Farnese is still called Via della Corda (Rope Street).

In the description below the plate Vasi made reference to: 1) The gallows; 2) Fontana della Terrina; 3) Palazzo Pio. 3) is covered in another page. The small 1748 map shows also 4) Via del Pellegrino; 5) Albergo della Vacca. The dotted line in the small map delineates the border between Rione Regola (left lower quarter) and Rione Parione.

Etching, in very good condition.

View taken from the monumental work Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna.

Published in 10 volumes from 1747 to 1761, the work features 238 copper engravings, each engraving with a narrative text that provides historical and documentary information.

Known by most simply as the "master" of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Giuseppe Vasi reveals in this monumental work the fullness of his graphic creativity.

The 10 books that compose it each have a title page with a different title and date: Libro primo che contiene le porte e mura; Libro secondo, che contiene le piazze principali di Roma con obelischi, colonne, ed altri ornamenti; Libro terzo, che contiene le basiliche e chiese antiche di Roma; Libro quarto che contiene i palazzi e le vie più celebri; Libro quinto che contiene i ponti e gli edifizj sul Libro sesto che contiene la chiese parrocchiali; Libro settimo che contiene i conventi e case dei chierici regolari; Libro ottavo che contiene i monasteri e conservatorj di donne; Libro nono che contiene i collegj, spedali, e luoghi pii; decimo che contiene le ville e giardini più rimarchevoli. 

The Magnificences provide a complete and at the same time unconventional panorama of the City: thus, together with the usual, celebrated shots taken from the best tradition of vedutistica, one also finds an unusual Rome, one that, at times, no longer exists. The author had worked on this work, of central importance in Roman publishing in the middle of the eighteenth century, for almost twenty years, producing a monumental guide to the “Urbe” where, alongside the usual and famous shots taken from the best tradition of vedutistica, he also immortalized unusual views that have since disappeared with the change of the city. The text that accompanies the views in the first volume is by Giuseppe Bianchini, in the second by Orazio Orlandi and in the remaining ones by Vasi himself.