Ernst Zacharias Platner

In the winter of 1817/1818, the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta paid a visit to Rome.

On the recommendation of the Prussian ambassador, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, he gave Platner a commission to rework a book about Italy, by Johann Jacob Volkmann [de].

Together with Christian Karl Josias von Bunsen, and several other specialists, he produced what is now a standard work, Description of the City of Rome, in two volumes.

When Pope Pius IX had to flee Rome in 1849, following the establishment of the short-lived Roman Republic, revolutionaries came to Platner's home and tore down the Papal flag.

Platner immediately took down the Saxon flag, declaring: "His Majesty the King accredited me to His Holiness, but not to you!”.