“Rome – the city of visible history, where the past of a whole hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral images and trophies gathered from afar.” – George Eliot
Take a tour of Rome with these photochrom postcards from 1890. Shot in black and white and then colored by the innovative photochrom method where the negative is transferred onto a lithographic plate. A process invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid who worked for the Swiss company Orell Gessner Füssli – a printing firm whose history began in the 16th century. The ancient sites as they were then and largely as they are today.
Outside the Coliseum
A view from the Palace of the Caesars
The bridge and castle of St. Angelo
The Piazza Navona
The Triumphal Arch of Titus
Piazza di Minerva
Trevi Fountain
Inside St. Paul’s
The ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux
The Temple of Bosco
The tomb of Victor Emmanue
Garibaldi’s Monument
St. Trinita dei Monti
St. Peter’s Place
The Piazza del Popolo
The Pyramid of Cestius at St. Paul’s Gate
A view from the Palatine
The Acqua Felice fountain
Vesta’s Temple
The Forum Romanum from the Palatine
The Forum
Romano Forum
Trajan’s Column
Inside the Coliseum
The Coliseum and Meta Sudans
The Fountain of the Naiads in Piazza della Repubblica
The Piazza del Campidoglio
Capitoline
The Temple of Saturn and Triumphal Arch of Septimus Severus.
Images courtesy of the Library of Congress
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