But when did this so catchy and successful principle of before-and-after illustration for the ancient monuments of Rome actually come into being? [2] Now, Raphael’s so-called letter to Leo X from the late 1510s on the project of recording all ancient monuments of Rome already indicates that the intended illustrations recorded both the present appearance and (partly) also reconstructions – without it being possible to determine more precisely how systematically this was realized and whether, for example this project was intended for publication. [3] In this respect, the question of this contribution addresses only to actually published and illustrated books and prints, which for the first time work with the principle of illustrating the before-and-after for buildings in Rome. This is the attempt of a first compilation, whereby it seems to emerge that the principle of such illustrations was actually developed for the ruins of Rome in the field of travel guides and souvenirs and not adapted from other subject and task areas.

Three preliminary remarks and limitations are important: In 1550, two small, related woodcuts appeared in a book, showing the Laocoön once in ‘found state’, once with additions. The latter illustration evokes both the ancient appearance and a restoration intended to recreate the original completeness. [4] This seems to be the earliest printed before-and-after illustration ever, albeit for a sculpture and initially without follow-up.

It is certainly true – and this is the second thing to consider – that the Laocoön was often shown on other engravings, partly damaged, partly supplemented, and the same can be found for the buildings of Rome. However, the decisive criterion that the illustrations were necessarily conceived and seen together is missing in these cases [5] that because collectors could arranged and combined at will the loose sheets of the prints.

Third, what can be observed elsewhere, applies to the before-and-after principle of representation too, i.e. that such inventions and innovations in pictorial argumentation and use were first tried out in the medium of drawing. Thus, a draftsman probably from the wider circle of Étienne Dupérac produced an illustrated manuscript Disegni de le Ruine di Roma e come anticamente erono around 1574/79. [6] Here, already demonstratively and somewhat consistently reconstructed antique state and ruin view are juxtaposed (figs. 3, 4). Although this project was not engraved, it may have further paved the way for print before-and-after illustrations.

In any case, the numerous woodcuts provided by the publisher Girolamo Franzini (Venice and Rome) to illustrate his editions of Andrea Fulvio’s and Bartolomeo Marliani’s Rome handbook from 1588 onwards – and which marked the final triumph of the illustrated guidebook – never refer twice to a building. This if we disregard the modern general view of the Capitol, which is followed by several representations of reconstructed temples there. [7]

Probably for the first time in the Ornamenti di fabriche antichi et moderni dell’Alma città di Roma – published for the crowds of visitors to the Holy Year 1600 – the publisher Andrea della Vaccaria had a building illustrated in its (reconstructed) ancient and its modern state on two plates. The preparatory drawings and engravings are (mostly?) by Giovanni Maggi, the explanatory text below the illustrations by Bartolomeo Rossi. Two of the only 24 engravings show the ancient Mausoleum of Hadrian, later known as Castel Sant’Angelo (figs. 5, 6).

Since the engravings do not bear any numbering, both sheets did not necessarily have to be bound one after the other. [8] Moreover, the Latin captions make it clear that the depiction with the ‘modern state’ is actually about the Tiber Bridge built by Hadrian in front of Castel Sant’Angelo, not about the mausoleum itself. In addition, the texts of the two panels do not refer to the other illustration either.

Pietro Martire Fellini adopts as well the illustration principle in his Trattato nuovo dell’alma città di Roma, published several times since 1610, only on selected buildings, but now explicitly shown as former and present conditions. The temple of Jupiter Stator on the Forum Romanum, for example, is first shown “as it once was”, then in the following chapter the “remnant [...] on the Campo Vaccino” (pp. 390–391). Similarly, Giovanni Domenico Franzini in his Descrittione di Roma antica e moderna (first ed. 1643) will illustrate in the second part to the Antichità figurate dell’alma città di Roma (pp. 648–651) the Mausoleum of Augustus in the reconstructed ancient state and as a modern ruin (figs. 7, 8).

The case of Giacomo Lauro’s plates in his work titled Antiquae Urbis Splendor is a different one. Although the engraved title page speaks of the “old and new buildings” of Rome, the first three sections of the work, published around 1615 (dated 1612–1615), but probably largely engraved before 1609, provide – apart from a few supplementary illustrations with plans, ceremonies and equipment – exclusively reconstructed monuments on 99 plates. Only the fourth part, published in 1628, offers views of the present state of some buildings. The connections – for example between Hadrian’s Mausoleum and Castel Sant’Angelo (figs. 9, 10) – must therefore be made by the viewer himself over dozens of plates. [9]

In addition, the text includes illustrations of ancient coins with architectural representations, on which the reconstructions are based and which are supposed to authenticate them (figs. 13, 14, 15). The enormous editorial success of Donati’s Roma vetus ac recens, with further editions in 1665, 1694, 1695 (in two printed versions), 1725, and 1738 (these two with significantly inferior plates, being engraved copies), as well as reprints in Graevius’s Thesaurus antiquitatum romanarum (1698 and 1733), finally established the principle of before-and-after illustration.