Giovani Antonio Magini, 1555 - 1617.
Born in Padua, Magini is credited with producing "Italia",
the very first atlas of Italy (even though the work was finalized
and published three years after his death by his son Fabio).
Of limited cartographic skills, Magini borrowed extensively
from contemporary mapmakers, such as Giacomo Gastaldi. He
also enrolled gifted engravers such as Benjamin Wright and
Girolamo Porro. Besides Italia, his 1596 new edition of Ptolemy
Geographia met with great success and was re-issued at least
six times in different languages till 1621.
This map engraved in 1596 for Geographia, is a larger (6
¾" X 5") and more detailed derivation of the map of France
that Gastaldi used in his own 1548 Geographia.
This present item was printed in 1621 for a late Italian version
of Magini master piece.
While both coastlines and river courses are lacking, the location
of towns, mountain ranges, forests and lakes, is remarkably
accurate. The map picture the kingdom of France with roman
time frontiers (encompassing not only present days France,
but also significant portions of Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg,
Germany, Switzerland and Italy).
Notice that while Country names are given in Latin, name places
are shown in their local language.
Italian text on verso.