II. Barbey 1697
The 1551 Bufalini map was acknowledged by Giambattista Nolli as the precursor to his Grande Pianta of Rome. However the 1697 plan of the city by Antonio Barbey was the immediate predecessor of Nolli's map, and exerted considerable influence on his work. The Barbey plan is perhaps the clearest and most informative image of the contemporary city before Nolli. Except for its overall proportions it is also one of the more accurate delineations of the city up to the end of the 17th century.
While tracing the remains of ancient ruins and labeling classical sites, Barbey made no effort to reconstruct ancient monuments the way Bufalini did in his map. Evidently his concern was the city of his day, with equal attention paid to both the densely inhabited center and to the sparser areas within the circuit of the urban walls. The contemporary city was also Nolli's principal concern. Both Barbey and Nolli trace the borders of the city's fourteen Rioni. Nolli worked with Bernardini on the redrawing of those borders when they underwent considerable changes in 1744.
Barbey's map is perhaps the best figurative source for the pre-1744 Rione borders. They are close to the written descriptions of these earlier borders by Bernardini, but do not correspond to them exactly. A comparison of the borders as depicted on the two maps throws considerable light on Bernardini's intentions of consolidation and simplification of Rome's administrative regions. It also suggests that these earlier borders go back at least to the first half of the Cinquecento.
