Northern Italy Map 1858 Railroads & Papal States Atlas Print - Milan, Venice, Turin, Bologna, Florence

This Colton's Northern Italy was published in New York in 1858 by Joseph Hutchins Colton, one of the most prolific American mapmakers of the middle of the nineteenth century. It is a highly detailed map of Northern Italy, colored by Papal States, showing towns, roads, rivers, lakes, mountains, railroads and islands, with a decorative border. It was a terrific regional map of the area in the years when the American public followed the news of Italy more closely than at any time before. The railroads are among the features that stand out, which reflects the building boom of the 1850s. The coloring by Papal States and the network of railroads and roads are the features that make the sheet most useful for study.

In 1858 northern Italy was still divided, and the map's coloring records the states of the time, among them the Papal States, which reach into the lower part of the sheet. A year later, in 1859, the war between France, Piedmont and Austria began and changed the map within months, and in 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was declared. Colton was based at 172 William Street in New York, and his atlases were among the best-selling of the era in the United States. The railroads, roads and lakes make this a map for study. The sheet suits anyone who likes to follow a rail route across old borders.

A collector of Colton maps, a family with roots in Lombardy, Piedmont or Emilia, or a reader of Risorgimento history will find a handsome gift here. TheMapVault's Colton sheet of 1856 shows the same north from the atlas edition two years earlier, whereas this 1858 sheet is the separately issued version with the railroads. 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.