Italy Map 1688 Baroque Engraved Print - Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence, Milan, Genoa

Matthaeus Merian the Elder and Caspar Merian are credited with this Nova Italiae Delineatio, a copper-engraved map of the Italian peninsula that the Merian heirs published in Frankfurt am Main in 1688 in the Topographiae Italiae. The sheet measures 37 by 29 centimeters and shows Italy with Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, and neighboring Dalmatia, Istria, the Swiss Alps and part of southern France. North is at the top, and the surrounding seas are lettered in Latin as Mare Ligustico, Mare Tyrrhenum, Mare Ionio and Mare Adriaticum. A decorated title cartouche sits in the upper right, and a smaller cartouche at lower right carries the Scala Miliarum. The catalog notes that the dimensions it gives are the sheet size, and that the volume belongs to the celebrated Topographia series begun by Matthaeus Merian the Elder.

Rivers, mountain ranges and towns are labeled in dense detail across the peninsula, and the major cities are Roma, Neapolis, Venetia, Florentia, Mediolanum, Genua and Torino. The Alps are rendered in dense stippling, and place names run beyond Italy into Parte di Francia, Helvetiae Pars, Parte di Carintia and Parte di Dalmatia. Three large sailing ships and sea monsters animate the waters, which gives this Baroque sheet its lively look. Regional divisions are suggested by the spread of settlements instead of drawn boundaries, as was usual in the seventeenth century.

A collector of seventeenth-century maps, a family with roots anywhere in Italy, or a traveler who has loved Rome, Venice or Florence will find a handsome gift here. TheMapVault's Merian sheets of Sicily and of the northern duchies from the same book cover parts of the peninsula in greater detail, whereas this 1688 print shows the whole boot at once. 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.