A delightful illustrated article here about reconstructing the appearance of ancient Rome. One item in it caught my eye:
The article adds:
Among the most useful visual resources for studying the ancient city are the physical models which, since the eighteenth century, architects started to provide to help scholars and students better understand the ancient remains.
The pioneer was the famous cork-modeler, Antonio Chichi, who lived from 1743 to 1816. He created a set of 36 of the great sites of ancient Rome. Sold to Grand Tourists, they served as souvenirs but also as study aids (cf. Wilton and Bignamini 1996: 298) analogous to plaster casts of famous Greek and Roman statues, which, not coincidentally, as Giuseppe Pucci has shown, also came into vogue at this time (Pucci 1997).
As can be seen in the case of the model of the Arch of Titus (fig. 9), Chichi’s reproductions were state models, not reconstructions: that is, they showed the current condition of the monument.
In the example at hand, we thus see the arch still embedded within the Frangipane tower before Valadier’s restoration of the early nineteenth century.
Marvellous!
Have you ever seen the magnificent cork models of Pompeii at the Soane museum at Lincoln’s Inn Fields?
‘Fraid not!
well, you know you have to see them. When I was in London last year, they were off display. A cork model artisan (indeed!) was recreating some lost sections of the great model. They’d even figured out how to age it to match. Should be a treat. Get to Soane’s!
Hi! Do you know where this model us? Is there more than one? Thanks, Steve
I don’t – sorry! It sounds as if such items were made for sale to travellers, so probably there are.
I am illustrating my book on the AoT. Do you have a 300 dpi image that you can let us use?
Hi,
The image is just off the web somewhere. Sorry!
Roger