Abstract

This study aims to definitively recognize to Ridolfino Venuti, a famous eighteenth-century antiquarian, the authorship of an anonymous guide, in two volumes, released in 1741 from the presses of Giovan Battista Bernabò and Giuseppe Lazzarini’s typography: Roma antica distinta per regioni and Roma moderna distinta per rioni. The attribution to Venuti has been possible thanks to the analysis of published and handwritten sources, the accurate rereading of the preface and the study of the editorial events of the book. Deeply influenced by the antiquarian and topographical research conducted in the city in the first half of the eighteenth century, Roma antica e moderna (1741) represents a fundamental step in the path that led Ridolfino Venuti to write his most famous work, Accurata e succinta descrizione topografica delle antichità di Roma (1763).