FERRARA

In the upper center, below the top border, is engraved the title: FERRARA. In the upper left corner is depicted the coat of arms of Clement VIII (Ippolito Aldobrandini). In the upper right corner is engraved a numerical legend, of 93 references to notable places, spread over three columns. The lower left-hand corner reads: La cita di Ferrara è Situata per latitudine G di 43 Per longitudine Gradi 33 Rivista dil S. Gioseppe Capocacia. Engraved in the lower center is the editorial imprint: Matteo Florimi Formis.

Although it is considered by all repertories to be the prototype of the city's topographic maps, as we wrote in Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo (p. 2146), it is simply the first faithful replica of Giuseppe Capocaccia's map of the city engraved by Girolamo Dinovo. Compared to the model, the cartouche with the dedication disappears; while in the upper right-hand corner, instead of the decorative cartouche with the name of the city, a detailed legend finds its place. We do not know from what source Florimi derives the contents of the legend. On the map, the most recent building is the 1585 Palazzo dei Bentivoglio - No. 23, lower left.

“The map of the city engraved by Girolamo Dinovo and, as stated in the table, "revised" by Giuseppe Capocaccia, represents the earliest perspective representation of Ferrara from which all subsequent ones until the new relief by Andrea Bolzoni (1647) derive. The plan was made on the occasion of the devolution of the Duchy of Ferrara to the Holy See, in January 1598; in the upper left-hand corner, in fact, it bears the coat of arms of Pope Clement VIII, born Ippolito Aldobrandini, celebrated for having recovered the Duchy to the Papal State. At lower right is the dedication to Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Blandrate of St. George. The first state of the plate, ahead of Orlandi's address and the date 1602, is unknown to all the repertories consulted on the city of Ferrara; it follows that the next plate, by Matteo Florimi, which is a clear and timely derivation of this one, is considered its prototype. Benevolo, in describing Florimi's copy, points out that the orientation is chosen so that the medieval city, with its east-west axis rectified and arranged horizontally, serves as a base for the modern city, the Addizione Erculea. The oblique projection, by increasing the scale of the denser buildings in the foreground and decreasing that of the sparser buildings in the background, makes the two areas prospectively uniform, and presents the image of a unified city, although it does not faithfully reproduce reality. The river that runs in the lower part is only one of the secondary arms of the Po, which forks at this point to lose itself in the coastal valleys; but in the early Middle Ages it was one of the main arms, and along its bank the first nucleus of the city was formed" (cf. Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2144).

Etching and engraving, impressed on contemporary laid virgin paper with watermark "eagle in circle with crown" (similar to Woodward no. 64), with margins, restorations in central fold visible from verso, otherwise in good condition.

Very rare work, surveyed for only 11 institutional examples according Bifolco-Ronca (Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2146).

Matteo Florimi (Polistena c. 1540 - Siena 1613) was a publisher and merchant of books and prints. Of Calabrian origin, he settled in Siena in 1581, with a store “in Banchi”. Matteo Florimi's chalcographic activity was several times joined by master engravers such as Cornelis Galle, Arnoldo Arnoldi, Pieter de Iode, Jan Sadeler and artists such as Francesco Vanni, Ventura Salimbeni and Alessandro Casolani, with whom the printer collaborated in the preparation of religious subjects. Florimi's cartographic activity produced prints of many cities and territories around the world, which were never drawn for him, but were manipulations of already existing reliefs, or of maps published by other printers. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Florimi was far-sighted in devoting himself to the production of bird's-eye views of cities as faithfully as possible.  Florimi copied some maps by Antonio Lafreri, Claude Duchet, Abraham Ortelius. As far as map engraving work was concerned, in 1600, Matteo Florimi called the Flemish engraver Arnoldo degli Arnoldi to work in his workshop with the promise of greater compensation than that bestowed upon him by Giovanni Antonio Magini, with whom the artist was working. This offer by Florimi triggered the wrath of Magini, who, though not naming him, called him an "envious counterfeiter" for stealing such a skilled cartographer from him. The collaboration between Florimi and Arnoldi lasted only two years (1600-1602), but it was quite productive: together they printed the Stato di Siena, la Choronografia Tusciae, la Nuova descrittione della Lombardia, l’Europa, l’America and the Descrittione Universale della Terra.

Bibliografia

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo (2018), tav. 1092; Elisa Boffa, Un tipografo calabrese a Siena: Matteo Florimi, in “Accademia dei Rozzi” (2013): II, n. 7; H.A.M. van der Heijden, Matteo Florimi (+1613) – Landkarten und Stadtplanverleger in Siena, in “Florilegium Cartographicum”, Lipsia (1993): n. 23; Alberghini (2008): p. 166; Benevolo (1969): pp. 53-55, tav. V; Bentini (2004): p. 208; L’Immagine delle città italiane (1998): p. 136, n. 17.