Used for essentially strategic purposes or as documentary appendices to volumes of memoirs or history, maps accompanied the military affairs of the Roman Republic and French armies.

A precise and detailed topographic description of the territory where the armies were aligned in the battlefield, with their own trenches and artillery, was essential to define the timing and mode of attack or defense. Every peculiarity of the terrain whether of natural or man-made origin necessarily had to be made legible in the maps. The representations were essentially based on pre-existing cadastral plans, but in order to choose the strategy and tactics deemed successful, extreme accuracy in the execution of the plans was necessary. A compendious but accurate image corresponding to the actual environment had to be obtained.

Detailed knowledge of the terrain and its orography was therefore necessary. In the documents of those who, like Calandrelli, had held the post of artillery colonel there are numerous sketches and maps. Officers of the General Staff of the Roman Republic, such as Guglielmo Cenni, had drawn very accurately maps of the attack and defense works of 1849.

At the fall of the Republic many plans were published in the memorial volumes where the different stages of the siege, the people and the territory found description and commentary. But they also serve in reports to obtain liquidation of war damage caused to buildings during the siege.

In 1849 the Secretary of the French Embassy in Rome, Charles Baudin, documented the damages caused by the conflict on buildings of artistic heritage and accompanied his notes with a map. On the " Carta topografica del suburbano di Roma” (Topographical Map of the Suburbs of Rome) made by the Congregazione del Censo in 1839, the damaged places were highlighted in red. The map was accompanied by other military indications.

There was much interest in how the French troops had led the siege, and not only in military circles. This campaign was considered brilliant and contributed much to the political career of the General Vaillant, who commanded the sappers of Oudinot’s expedition.

Therefore, detailed maps of the area of Janiculum were produced, depicting in detail the locations of the fighting, the trenches made, and the placement of artillery.

Extremely detailed is the "Plan du siège de Rome avec les différentes tranchées et batteries," which is also accompanied by an account of the firing operations. Instead, the maps that Pompilio de Puppis published in his writings, were meant for the Italian public.

It can be assumed that these maps and others dealing with these topics, were connected to the topographic surveys conducted by Vaillant’s staff, even after the French victory. These works also led to the production of the Plan relief du siège de Rome preserved at the Musée des plans-reliefs, at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris.

But traces of them can also be found in Lecchi's salted papers. In the photograph " Batteria alla breccia Aureliana" the presence of French soldiers at work is clearly evident. In " Villa Valentini. Facciata Est" two French soldiers are seated under the portico; one of them holds papers on his lap, hinting that they might be cartographers at work.

(Maria Pia Critelli)

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