Gezicht op Ancona in vogelvluchtperspectief Possibly 1600 - 1717

This anonymous, undated print shows a bird’s-eye view of Ancona, Italy. This image is from an age when cartography served not just navigation but civic pride and political ambition. The detailed rendering of Ancona’s urban layout speaks to a culture deeply invested in civic planning and control. What stories do these streets hold? What social classes lived where, and how did the city’s design reinforce these divisions? The presence of ships hints at Ancona’s role as a trade hub, a position that would have shaped its cultural identity. The map is full of untapped data, a time capsule waiting to be opened. By consulting archives, censuses, and other historical documents, we can start to reconstruct the social and institutional life that is pictured here. In doing so, we appreciate that art is not made in a vacuum, but rather is the product of a specific time and place.