Provincia di Calabria Ultra I

Very rare map from the Atlante Corografico, Statistico, Storico, ed Idrografico del Regno delle Due Sicilie Diviso ne Domini al di qua ed al di la del Faro by Giuseppe Bifezzi, printed in Naples, Tipografia alla Sibilla, 1836-1845.

This is the definitive edition of Calabrian geographer Giuseppe Bifezzi's important survey of the peninsular part of the Kingdom of Naples. Next to Benedetto Marzolla's Chorographic Atlas of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, this work undoubtedly constitutes one of the most significant regional descriptions of the Kingdom of Naples in the first half of the 19th century. The work came out in Naples between 1836 and 1845 in 15 dispensations, each consisting of text and plates, and is very rare. In 1837 the Nuovo atlante corografico, statistico, storico, ed idrografico del Regno delle Due Sicilie had come out, anticipating this publication by publishing only 18 maps. The project also included a second part concerning Sicily, which was never realized.

The volume is illustrated by a general map of the Kingdom of Naples, 2 plates depicting the main lakes of the Kingdom, 15 maps with watercolor borders, corresponding to the 15 provinces, 16 views: Naples, Caserta, Capua, Salerno, Potenza, Avellino, Foggia, Bari, Lecce, Cosenza, Catanzaro, Reggio Calabria, Campobasso, Chieti, Aquila, Teramo, and 16 plates of costumes of the different provinces. The views and costumes are lithographs by Giuseppe D'Onofrio from drawings by Francesco Wenzel.

Giuseppe Bifezzi, Calabrian inventor and cartographer, was born Sept. 12, 1798, in Serra San Bruno. Engineer, geographer, lithographer, captain in the Borboni army, member of the Royal Topographical Office, inventor of an instrument for measuring distances-the telegometer-that, even more than his geographic and cartographic work, was decisive in consolidating Bifezzi's fame among his contemporaries.

Of his invention Bifezzi had provided accurate details in an in-folio publication, accompanied by illustrative drawings, printed in Naples in 1848 at the Real Tipografia Militare, which opened with a Memoir by the author on his work. The invention of the telegometer stemmed, according to the beginning of the aforementioned Memoir, from the realization that while the measurement of horizontal distances was essential in topographical surveys, equally "difficult, time-consuming, and inexact" was the method of the time to obtain it.

The telegometer, as also recorded in the record of the Istituto Geografico Militare, which houses a specimen of it in the Museum of Instruments in Florence, appeared in the Great Exhibition in London, sponsored by the Royal Society of Arts, in 1862 and was later presented as well in the International Maritime Exhibition in Naples in 1871, together with two other devices (the telescopometer and the pantelemeter).

Etching with contemporary outline colour, some foxing, otherwise good condition.

Bibliografia

V. Valerio, Atlanti napoletani del XIX sec. (1808-1869), scheda 25, pp. 92-94; Cremonini, 316.