In the beautiful building of the Auditorium of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill, our attention may be captured not only by the remains of paintings and the structure itself, but also by some marble slabs having strange markings on the surface. These sheets are, however, one of the most amazing historical documents of the ancient Rome: the Severian Forma Urbis! What is its meaning? It is time to discover it... 

This is a great marble map of the Rome of the third century, a great masterpiece probably realized between the 203 and the  211 d.C. The name comes from the Emperor Septimius Severus and his dinasty, who apparently decided to have this magnificent marble map in one of the rooms of the Forum of Peace, that was previously wanted by the emperors of the Flavian dynasty (in this case we are talking about the I century a.D.). Right in the heart of the city and the administrative center of Rome! Probably the hall in which the Forma Urbis was hosted was a library or office, and it is not strange to think that this map may have had a function of urban development, used perhaps for the ancient plans or to fight the illegal construction. Probably, in fact, we are facing an attempt, of course gorgeous, to control the land of a city like Rome which, in its territory, had hundreds of thousands of people. A kind of control, therefore, it was necessary.

The map, in a scale of 1:240, was lost in the course of the centuries. Dismembered or destroyed, since the XVI century some fragments began to emerge from the ground or from private collections and small marble slabs with dots and lines carved on the surface started to be studied or simply found. Those signs represent the ground plans of private buildings, the shape of the streets and squares. A great map that consists today of 1186 fragments, discovered in the course of the centuries! Therefore not only the Forma Urbis is a trusted and tangible source of the city of Rome of III century d.C. but, in spite of everything, is an artifact that has had a very interesting story behind it, made by partition, finds, theft, and more. A rare and exceptional document in which they surface peristyles, colonnades, places of interest, such as the antique markets or temples. We have tracks about the plants of those buildings that are reviving, in a way monumental, the life of Rome. A glimpse of the ancient city!