Efisio Luigi Tocco: a 'lover of antiquities' in 19th-century Rome

In the title of a pamphlet published in 1870, architect Efisio Luigi Tocco (c. 1800-1874) declares himself a lover of antiquities. Born in Cagliari (Sardinia), Tocco migrated to Rome in 1822 and spent the rest of his life investigating the topography of the eternal city and the territory of Latium. He published many articles in newspapers and academic journals as well as short monographs on various subjects such as the draining of Lake Fucinus, Rome's harbors, the naumachiae, and the floods of the Tiber. His favorite research topics were ancient topography and Roman architecture and material culture, as is attested to by his works on several archaeological sites in Sardinia, Latium, and, for what concerns Rome, the Roman Forum (to which he devoted a long monograph in 1858) and the Colosseum. His discovery of nine fragments of the Severan marble plan of Rome in the garden of the Monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian gave him some notoriety (although less than he expected) and today he is mostly remembered for that excavation. Yet, his personal archival documents shed new light on other unpublished digs and studies as well as on his relationships (and feuds) with several antiquarians and archaeologists between the French occupation (1809-14) and the Capture of Rome (1870). Tocco's letters to prime ministers, popes, and directors of excavations are set in their historical context and bring back to life an almost completely neglected figure.