Comic Book Artist Recreates Ancient Rome

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Comic Book Artist

Recreates Ancient Rome

By Angela Doland

Associated Press Writer

10-13-4

 

ROME -- Imagine ancient Rome before its fall: The some 1,350

fountains still trickle with water, the 1,790 palaces haven't fallen

to ruins and the 240 public latrines are still in business.

 

In painstaking detail, French comic book artist Gilles Chaillet has

brought the ancient city back to life with an immense map based on a

lifetime of research and a touch of artistic license.

 

Chaillet dreamed up the project when he was 9 years old. Nearly 50

years later, he came to the Eternal City to show it off to the

Romans.

 

"This was an idea I could never get out of my head," Chaillet told

The Associated Press on Thursday. "It was a bit of an obsession."

 

There are no definitive surviving maps of ancient Rome, which was

most of the challenge, he said.

 

Chaillet's immense map is colored in with cheerful greens, russets

and pearly tones by his wife, Chantal. Looking at it, you can

imagine a day's stroll in Rome circa 314 A.D.: a leisurely morning

at the bathhouses, a stop at the market to buy some chickpeas and

trip to the Circus Maximus to take in a chariot race.

 

When Chaillet was a child in Paris, he discovered the ruins of Rome

through a postcard and comic books. Inspiration struck.

 

"I announced to my parents, 'I want to re-create ancient Rome,'" he

said. "They said, 'calm down and go do your math homework.'"

 

At one point, Chaillet's father was so frustrated by his son's lack

of attention to his schoolwork that he set fire to some early Rome

sketches.

 

Chaillet, now 58, made other Rome maps at age 13 and at 20, during

his military service. After high school, he became a successful

comic book artist in a country where everyone from kindergartners to

executives read them.

 

In his downtime, Chaillet visited archives, libraries and museums to

research his side project.

 

He set his map in 314 A.D. because the majestic and well-preserved

Arch of Constantine wasn't built until around then, and he felt most

Rome-lovers couldn't imagine the city without it.

 

At that time, Rome had about 1 million inhabitants and was ruled by

Constantine I, who legalized Christianity.

 

When Chaillet finally sat down to sketch the 11 foot-by-6.5 foot

map, he spent 5,000 hours at the drawing board. His wife spent

another 3,000 hours coloring it in.

 

Chaillet thinks that about 5 percent of the map's 13,000 buildings

are completely accurate. About 30 percent are fairly accurate, and

the rest is based on educated guesses, he said.

 

The map has been displayed in museums around France, and in April

Chaillet published a 200-page French-language book to accompany the

project, "Inside the Rome of the Cesars."

 

Now, his sketches and a smaller copy of the map are on display at

the French cultural center in the city that inspired his dreams.

 

"It's the end of a long quest" - and probably the end of his career

as a mapmaker, Chaillet said.

 

"There are other cities I also love, like Venice and my hometown,

Paris," he said. "But there's not the same emotion there. ... I'd

need a second life to do a second city."

 

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