1885 Romolo Bulla Pictorial Map of Rome, Italy

This is an 1885 Romolo Bulla tourist map of Rome, Italy. Oriented to the west-southwest, Bulla's map shows from the Aventine Hill, on the left, to the Piazza del Popolo and the Villa Borghese, on the right, and from the Vatican at the top of the map to the Termini train station at the bottom. It includes profile illustrations to most of the major monuments in Rome, including the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Temple of Vesta, and the Vatican, among others. All place names and street names are in Italian. Around the edges, the map presents a street reference guide. Additionally, the sidebars also describe the Roman tram system, including instructions in Italian, French, English, and German describing how to use the trams – clearly a new innovation for the city

We can definitively date the center plate to 1885, but we have been unable to find an example in any institutional collections of this exact map. The tram network and the descriptions of the lines have been added to this map, which makes it much more interesting, but may also suggest a slightly later issue. This map was published by Romolo Bulla in 1885.