The places of power: Corni draws the eternal Rome

The Eternal City told through its buildings from drawings by Francesco Corni which accompanies the reader on a fascinating journey among the remains and reconstructions of the monuments still visible. The volume ‘Rome – Places of power’, presented at ‘Più libripiù liberi’ and in the Piedmontese headquarters at Unar, it collects mostly unpublished drawings dedicated to Rome by the artist between 2013 and 2019, the year before his death.

Corni first outlines the boundaries of the palace and then traces the routes inside it. Each chapter begins with a overview of the area of ​​which the monuments are represented through individual tables. The illustrated places are ordered by geographical proximity and play with time, comparing remains and reconstructions. Like organic bodies, buildings are born, die and are often buried or swallowed up by new generation ones.
The volume, 420 pages of 30×30 formatstarts from the publication of the Atlas of Ancient Rome edited by Andrea Carandini and Paolo Carafa, especially from volume II, which contains the archaeological tables, a source of inspiration for the artist.

The lively synthetic text also allows non-experts to grasp the variations and understand their origins. After following the perimeter of the city and its variations, the Capitoline Hill, the administrative center of the city, is tackled in order; the plain with the livestock and herb markets (Fori Boario and Olitorio); the Roman Forum, the true center of the world in the Republican age; the Imperial Forums, proportionate to the now Mediterranean dimensions of the Empire; the area between the Roman Forum and the Colosseum, which from a place for the conservation of public resources will become the home of the Domus Aurea; the Palatine, with the house of Romulus; the Aventine, a popular neighborhood in the Republican age and exploited in the Imperial age; the Quirinale exploited by the Rome of the Popes; the Campus Martius; the Vatican: it ends with a look beyond the walls.