Forma Italiae
The Forma Orbis Romani (FOR) is a project managed by the Università degli Studi di Roma " La Sapienza " and CNR research project. The name is inspired by the Forma Urbis Romae, an antique, made of marble plan of the city of Rome.
As part of the project findings will be investigated on the former territory of the Roman Empire and brought to publication. Target is an archaeological cadastre that will serve above all to protect the ancient heritage. The focus is on the exploration of former or still existing centers of ancient civilization. In this regard topographical studies include all archaeological material from prehistory to late antiquity. They fall back on excavation results on surveys and archival material. The created in the wake archaeological maps shall be submitted at a scale of 1:25 000 or 1:50 000. In addition, contact should complete photographic documentation and detail drawings. The objects are fully described textually and scientifically classified. In particular, the surveys and the resulting knowledge and analysis of the topography of a place to play a fundamental role and worked for a long time influential on similar projects in other and more confined areas.
The project was made in 1922 on the initiative of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and of Rodolfo Lanciani under the auspices of the International Union Académique, where it is cared for as a project category C. For an international framework has been created in which the Archaeological Carta d'Italia could be integrated and extended. The idea to create an Archaeological Carta d'Italia, already came up in 1885. Taken and implemented really attack the Archaeological Carta d'Italia was named Forma Italiae until 1923 by the energetic use of Giuseppe Lugli and with the support of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the Unione Nazionale Accademica in Italy.
Lugli was also the first director of the project from 1924. 1926 appeared the first volume of the series of the same name under the title "Regio I, Latium et Campania. Vol I, Ager Pomptinus, pars I, Anxur - Tarracina ", the Lugli as well as the second volume had worked from 1928 itself. Lugli had the management of the relevant Commission International at Union Académique held until 1967. 1968 was succeeded by his pupil Ferdinando Castagnoli in the line, replaced in 1988 by Paolo Somella, since the projects the project.
Since then Somella is also president of the International Union of the Tabula Imperii Romani Académique funded, the complementary cooperation between these two sister projects has increased, which is mainly due to the introduction of electronic data processing in both projects. This was made possible by the sharing of a uniform system of georeferencing for cartography. Thus, since then created for the formatter Italiae data that reach a much higher level of detail, even for the Tabula Imperii Romani are used. For the future it is planned to provide data entirely in electronic form, so that the boundaries between both projects are still permeable.
In addition to the formatting Italiae there as contributing initiative the formatter conventus Tarraconensis in Catalonia, the previously published a volume in 1928. In the name of the series were also published the Carte de la Gaule romaine Archaeological in France and the Archaeological Carte de la Belgique romaine in Belgium. The format Italiae followed in the band division until 1984 the Augustan region division in Italy, as to understand the quoted band Giuseppe Luglis. In this way, the formatting Italiae were of the now 44 published volumes devoted solely to 18 volumes of the regions I, Etruria as Regio VII came on 6 volumes, all other regions have been, if any, previously considered by one to two volumes. Since 1996, the divisions are based on the leaf division of the Military Geographic Institute, so that separate volumes covering excerpts of these cards, for example, " Ager Tusculanus (IGM 150 III NE - II NO) ".