La Roma sotterranea cristiana
Giovanni Battista de Rossi's La Roma sotterranea cristiana, published in Rome by the Cromo-litografia pontificia in 1864, documents the Christian catacombs for archaeologists, epigraphers and church historians. The plates reproduced here are schematic plans of underground galleries: grey hatched corridors crossing at right angles, rectangular burial chambers hung off them, occasional black-filled shafts and stairs, printed on cream paper with visible halftone grain, useful as abstract grid patterns, map textures and diagram vocabulary.
