Evaluating the role of Roman guides in the first half of the seventeenth century allows to question the modern constitution of an aesthetic relationship between travelers and the city. Between ancient Roman history and Christian history, the perception of the city has for centuries been filtered by a mystical past that the traveler retraced physically under the sign of enchantement. The seventeenth century guides, however, are interested in proposing routes in modern Rome to a knowledgeable and curious audience. We will analyze the symbolic value of the urban space within the transition from the historical-religious reference system to the historical-cultural one. Within this transition, Giulio Mancini’s Viaggio per Roma is distinguished by its peculiar vision of urban space and by the extent left to the elaboration and exercise of a taste that is going to be individualized and diversified. Between textual analysis, social history and history of knowledge, it is to understand how the different urban organizations determined by these guides are the emanation of city and art conceptions in phases of change that can be traced back to theoretical trends and socio-cultural conflicts. The study of the structure of the texts and the treatment of the artistic heritage is aimed in particular at defining the instruments of hierarchy of the spectator-reader’s sight.