ITALIA di Matteo Greuter
Revista et Augmenta di Molti Luoghi Principali - 1657
Item I07a - 208 x 114 cms - Price R15,750
Matteo Greuter was born in Strasburg in 1556 and worked in Lyons, Avignon and Rome. He distinguished himself by his extremely accurate and elegant technique and he engraved numerous religious and mythological objects.
He is most famous for his beautiful map of Rome (1608) and this map of Italy which was produced in 12 pages, the largest one ever published. It was first published in 1657 in Venice by Stefano Mozzo Scolari. A second version was published in 1675 in Bologna by Pietro Todeschi and a third published by the the printing company of Domenico de Rossi.
The map is quite large (2.19 x 1.19 metres) and is produced to a scale of 1:540,000. The longitudes shown are relative to the Cape Verde islands. The place names are in Italian and the map contains allegorical figures from various regions of Italy. The three major islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica are shown separately.
A curious feature of this map is Greuter's decision to arrange Italy horizontally. His reasons are explained in the scroll ornament on the map itself.
The map also contains perspective maps of some of the major Italian cities.
