Southern Italy Map 1859 Papal States Railroads Atlas Print - Naples, Rome, Palermo, Cagliari, Valletta

This Colton's Southern Italy, Kingdom of Naples, I. Sardinia & Malta was published in New York in 1859 by Joseph Hutchins Colton. It is a highly detailed map of Southern Italy, colored by Papal States, showing towns, roads, rivers, lakes, mountains, railroads and islands. A large inset covers Malta and its Dependencies. It is a terrific regional map, according to the dealer, from one of the most prolific American mapmakers of the middle of the nineteenth century. The sheet is the separately issued 1859 version of the southern map, with the same title as the atlas sheet of three years earlier. The large inset of Malta and its Dependencies is one of the features singled out, and it adds a second map to the sheet.

The year 1859 was the last full year of the old Kingdom of Naples. In 1860 Garibaldi would land in Sicily and bring the kingdom down, and in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy would be proclaimed. The Papal States are colored on the map, which shows that Rome and its surroundings were still under the Pope. Malta, in the inset, was a British base at the center of the Mediterranean. Colton's maps were widely used in American homes and libraries, and this sheet, with its railroads and roads, shows how modern the south was thought to be. The sheet records the south in its last years as an old kingdom.

Any collector of Colton maps, or a family with roots in Naples, Sicily, Sardinia or Malta, or a reader of Garibaldi's campaign will find a fitting gift here. TheMapVault's 1856 atlas edition of Southern Italy is its twin, whereas this 1859 sheet adds railroads and a new coloring. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.