Pietro Rosa was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 and topographer. He studied the settlements of the ancient Roman countryside and carried out a systematic series of excavations on the Palatine Hill

Palatine Hill

The Palatine Hill is the centermost of the Seven Hills of Rome and is one of the most ancient parts of the city...

 in Rome.

One of Rosa's ancestors was Salvator Rosa 1615-1673, an avid patriot for the defense of the city of Rome in 1849 during the Roman Republic.
A student of Luigi Canina

Luigi Canina

Luigi Canina was an Italian archaeologist and architect.Luigi Canina, Italian architect and archeologist, was born in Casale Monferrato in 1795 and died in Florence in 1856. He was a pupil of F. Bonsignore in Turin, and settled in Rome in 1818...

, Rosa was an avid scholae of Rome and Latium

Latium

Lazio is one of the 20 administrative regions of Italy, situated in the central peninsular section of the country. With about 5.7 million residents and a GDP of more than 170 billion euros, Lazio is the third most populated and the second richest region of Italy...

. From 1861-1870 he carried out his excavations on the Palatine with the patronage of emperor Napoleon III. He also edited the Carta topografica del Lazio, an archaeological plan that he designed between 1850 and 1870 on a scale of 1:20,000. The map, measuring 3,40 x 3,10 m, is a unique and valuable study of the territory of Latium (modern Lazio) and the archaeological remains there. The work was completed only in certain areas, such as the Tyrrhenian

Tyrrhenian

Tyrrhenian may refer to the:* Tyrrhenian Stage, a faunal stage from 0.26 to 0.01143 million years ago* Tyrrhenians, an ancient ethnonym associated variously with Pelasgians, Etruscans or Lemnians* Tyrrhenian Sea* Tyrrhenian languages...

 coast, Tibur and Palestrina

Palestrina

Palestrina is an ancient city and comune with a population of about 18,000, in Lazio, c. 35 km east of Rome...

.

Rosa was named archaeological superintendent at Rome by royal decree on March 26, 1871. In the following years he was inspector general of antiquities in the ministry of public instruction and he was made a senator on December 1, 1870.

Further reading

• cf. L’archivio della Direzione generale delle Antichità e Belle Arti, Inventario a cura di Matteo Musacchio (Archivio Centrale dello Stato), Roma 1994, Vol. I, pp. 45-51, p. 104.
• M. A. Tomei, Scavi francesi sul Palatino, Roma 1999, pp. 1-19.
• On The Carta topografica del Lazio, see A.P. Frutaz, Le carte del Lazio, Vol. I, Roma 1972, pp. 132 -1.
• E. Gatti, "Il ritrovamento della carta archeologica del Lazio di Pietro Rosa," Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale LXXXII (1970-1971), pp. 143-145.

External links

• http://www.archeorm.arti.beniculturali.it/ada/storia/archeologi/rosa.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Rosa