Johannes de Ram’s fine plan of Rome.

This superb bird’s eye-view of Rome is based on Giovanni Battista Falda’s influential wall map of Rome. It provides remarkable detail, right down to the streets, churches, houses, gardens, piazzas, bridges and gates with the Vatican appearing in the immediate foreground. The legends flanking the map contain a key to 464 locations. The map is embellished with large figurative cartouches, the arms of Pope Innocent XII, and several cherubs. Johannes de Ram is a little known Dutch cartographer who published from Amsterdam in the latter part of the 17th century. His maps are characterized by bold engraving and large allegorical cartouches.