Topografia Fisica della Campania di Scipione Breislak...

Rare physical and topographical map of Campania, outlined by Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni on commission and based on information from Scipione Breislak.

Etching, circa 1797, impressed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, in excellent condition.

The geologist of Swedish origin Scipione Breislak (1750- 1826), had conducted long and interesting studies on several volcanic areas of the Neapolitan area, and had commissioned to Rizzi Zannoni a map on the Physical Topography of Campania. Contrary to what one might imagine, the map was not a companion to a volume on the geology of Campania but, as the author recalls in the preface to the Florentine edition, "this work is nothing more than the explanation of a map, which I had engraved for the purpose of recognizing at a glance the physical constitution of Campania". 

The map was made by Rizzi Zannoni and engraved in 1797 by Giuseppe Guerra, but some editorial mishaps and the pressing political events of those years did not allow to use this engraving in his work. In 1798, Breislak was called to Rome by the republican government, formed in February, and was part of the group of intellectuals gathered around the Monitore di Roma. The first edition of the volume bears the same title as the map and was made in Florence in 1798, but is devoid of the topographic map, because the copper, owned by Rizzi Zannoni, had remained in Naples. Only in that of Paris in 1801, in two volumes, entitled Voyages physiques et lithologiques dans la Campanie, Breislak manages to include the geological map. It is, however, an almost faithful copy of the one outlined by Rizzi Zannoni in 1797, entitled more simply Carte Physique de la Campanie, of the same size and scale, engraved by Thuillier (son) and written by Miller.

The evidence of the orography is amazing (certainly due to the hand of Alessandro D'Anna) and are identified with extreme clarity all the volcanic craters that affect the Campania region and its islands. The map is accompanied by a legend with 64 numerical references, while the letters from A to H indicate the “Lave principali sortite dal Vesuvio in questo secolo” (main lavas from Vesuvius in this century".

The ma is dedicated to La Sig. Contessa Skawronsky Nata Baroness Strogonow. The first Florentine edition of the volume is also dedicated to her, in which Breislak recalls the involvement of the noblewoman in the execution of the map and how she, without hesitation, provided to facilitate the execution. The dedicatee, Ekaterina von Egelhardt (1761-1829), was the niece of Grigory Aleksandroviè PotCmkin (1739-1791) and from 1784 was in Naples as his wife Pavel Martinovic Skavronskij, appointed Russian ambassador to the court of Naples. Since, after her husband's death in 1794, she returned to Russia, it is likely that the making of the map was begun before that date (see V. Valerio, L'Italia del Cavaliere Rizzi Zannoni, 2014, pp. 68-69, plate 27).

Magnificent example of this important cartographic survey, which describes very carefully the volcanic areas of the region.