Gallery of the Geographical Maps

Choose a coastline on one of the wall maps and follow its shape with your eyes. Ports, towns and stretches of sea share the surface with inscriptions and episodes from history. Pope Gregory XIII commissioned this gallery to bring the Italian peninsula and Church territories into a single painted setting. The Dominican scholar Egnazio Danti planned its geography. He was a mathematician, astronomer and mapmaker. Thirty-two territorial maps and eight narrower maps at the ends cover the walls. The Apennines organize the two sides conceptually, separating the territories facing different seas. Italy was then divided among several political powers. The gallery was built between 1578 and 1580 and measures 120 metres long. Its ceiling adds stories of saints and Church history associated with the regions below. Let a wall map introduce a place, then consider how the decoration above connects that place with a religious story. Geography and the Church’s account of its past occupy the same long room.