Explicatio aliquot locorum quae Puteolis spectantur

Very rare map of the Phlegraean Fields based on the model introduced by Bartolomeo Grassi and Mario Cartaro in 1586.

The cartouche in the upper left corner reads: EXPLICATIO ALIQUOT LOCORUM QUAE PUTEOLIS SPECTANTUR. This is followed by a numerical legend of 20 cross-references and editorial details: .N. V. A. formis Romae. Orientation provided by a wind rose in the sea, northeast is at the bottom. Map lacks graphic scale and graduation in margins.

The map edited by Bartolomeo Grassi and engraved by Mario Cartaro represents the direct prototype of almost all cartographies of the Phlegraean Fields until the mid-1800s, when, due to renewed archaeological interests, those places were revisited with greater attention by carrying out surveys with new instrumentation. It is the first archaeological map of the Phlegraean Fields, very rich in antiquarian information and very useful for the location of the main monuments in the area, both those still existing and the disappeared antiquities, whose location is based on literary sources. The work bears in the dedication the date of October 4, 1584. Grassi obtained the privilege to print it on October 1 of the same year, together with that for a book on the antiquities of Pozzuoli, illustrated by plates also engraved by Cartaro.

This is a further Roman replica of the Cartaro map, this time made by the printer of the publisher Nicolas van Aelst. The paper is undated but can nevertheless be traced to the last decade of the 16th century. The work is engraved in an entirely original manner, in a style that is unprecedented in cartographic works. The inscriptions have larger characters, and the result is that of a clear but inelegant plate” (see Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2073).

A very rare work, which had no reprints, known in only four copies preserved in the British Library, the Newberry Library, the National Library of Malta, and the Moreschi collection.

Nicolaus van Aelst was primarily a print publisher, a native of Brussels who came to Rome under Sixtus V and died in September 1613. His first papal privileges to printing date from 1586; by brief of December 13, 1588, he obtained a very important one, for as many as fifteen large-format engravings representing the building works of that pope. His store, near the Pantheon, gained fame, and was perhaps the most important of that time. It does not appear that Nicolaus worked in copper himself; but he published many sheets by the best artists, especially Antonio Tempesta.

Etching and engraving, printed on contemporary laid paper with watermark “fleur-de-lis with mountains in double circle” (similar to Woodward No. 102, which dates it to c. 1590), with margins, traces of perfectly restored paper fold, lower left margin added, otherwise in excellent condition.

Bibliografia

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2073, Tav. 1048; A. Ganado, Description of a splendid collection of 950 maps and views of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at the National Library of Malta, p. 179, 202. Newberry Library Cartographic Catalog, 4F 345; R. Shirley, Maps in Atlases of the British Library. A descriptive Catalogue, pp. 381-384, 53; R.V. Tooley, Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century, 1939, pp. 12-47, n. 459.