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Abstract: The article presents a series of initial considerations prompted by the task of organizing and cataloguing the papers in the archives of Paolo Orlando, preserved in the Archivio Storico Capitolino. The documentation makes it possible to follow all Paolo Orlando’s activity during the period from his transfer to Rome in 1897 to 1942, the year prior to his death. He was the founder and president of both the Comitato Nazionale Pro Roma Marittima and the Ente automono per lo Sviluppo Maittimo ed Industriale di Roma (SMIR) and, with the city of Rome, first a councilman, then a councillor for the Roman Campagna and the Food Administration. This activity was directed toward the construction of a seaport in the area of Fusano, a river port near Saint Paul’s basilica in Rome and navigable canal between the two ports. In addition, Orlando had planned, once the project was completed, a railway from Rome to Ostia Mare, connected to the Rome-Pisa line, and the building of a large industrial zone and a marine suburb in the area between Saint Paul’s, Fiumicino and Fusano. A cultivated man and an engineer, Paolo Orlando regarded his efforts for the capital’s industrial and maritime development as a true calling, almost as a complement to those political and professional ideals that had especially motivated the lives of his father, Luigi and his uncle, Giuseppe during the Risorgimento. However, because of the economic crisis following the end of World War I, the only project he was able to see realized was the railway between the capital and the Lido.