[Ponza, Ventotene]

Map of the Pontine Islands taken from the Atlante Geografico del Regno di Napoli compito e rettificato sotto i felici auspicj di Giuseppe Napoleone I re di Napoli e di Sicilia, Naples 1808. The Atlas, in 31 sheets and at a scale of 1:114,545 (Valerio 1993, p. 126), was completed in 1812. The title was changed in 1815, upon the return of the Bourbons to the throne of Naples: replacing the phrase compito e rettificato with delineato per ordine di Ferdinando IV Re delle. The work, in fact, had been commissioned in 1781 by Ferdinand IV of Naples to the Paduan geographer Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni.

The importance of this atlas lies in the fact that it was the first attempt to produce a large-scale cartography for the southern regions, geodetically measured and surveyed on the ground, no longer based only on the processing of previous maps. 

The Geographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples, which is one of the most important cartographic achievements in the eighteenth century Italian, is part of a broader ideological and cultural movement, headed by Abbot Ferdinando Galiani, according to which the "policy of use of resources" should be based on a "thorough knowledge of the territory.

Etching, with fine later hand colour, good condition.