Il vero ritratto di Nettuno al presente occupato dagl'imperiali

In the upper center, in the cartouche, the title: IL VERO RITRATTO DI NETTUNO al presente occupato da gl’inperiali. Lower center the date 1557. Orientation given on the four sides, in the center, with the name of the winds: TRAMONTANA, HALF OF, LEVANTE, PONENTE; the North is at the bottom.

Etching and engraving, printed on contemporary  laid paper, with margins, in excellent condition. Exemple in the fourth state, of five, with the address of Hendrick van Schoel.

Anonymous map without editorial indications - in its first drafts - dated 1557. The map, although centered on the city of Neptune, represented much enlarged and out of scale, describes the southern part of Lazio up to Monte Circeo and the Pontine Marshes. The work was produced on the occasion of the so-called Salt War (1556-57), when the armies of the viceroy of Naples, the Duke of Alba, invaded the southern part of the Papal States. Destombes attributes the plate to the printing house of Antonio Lafreri; the work is listed in the publisher's catalog (no. 81, as "Neptune"). However, it is also possible that this is a plate produced by Antonio Salamanca, whose plates merged into the Lafreri catalog after the union of the two printers. A proof of the plate is known, with only the city of Neptune outlined, preserved in the library of Dillingen. The second state of the plate, finished, is found in several sixteenth-century factitious collections; finally, the work was reprinted in 1602 by Giovanni Orlandi and then by Hendrick van Schoel after 1614.

Extremely rare.

References:

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, 2018, pp. 2260-2261, tav. 1160, IV/V; Alberti (2010): n. 86; Brandhuber-Juffinger (2011); n. 98; Borroni Salvadori (1980): n. 219; Christie’s (1998): n. 1050; Destombes (1970): nn. 82-82a; Edwards (1933): n. 69; Kinauer (1970): 68; Ganado (1994): III, n. 192 & p. 213, n. 64; Hatfield House (1992): n. 84; Nordenskiöld (1981): n. 71; Phillips (1914): n. 70; Ruge (1904-16): IV, 90.94; Shirley (2004): III, n. 43; Alberti (2009): p. 128, n. A.78; Marigliani (2005): p. 90; Marigliani (2016): n. XI.11; Pagani (2017): p. 47, C02 e p. 52; Pognon (1968): p. 15; Tooley (1939): nn. 417-418.