Mirandola

Rare first edition, without Giulio Ballino' text on verso, from the work Il primo libro delle città et fortezze del mondo.

At the center of the fortress, in larger letters: MIRANDOLA. At the top left, in a frame: A Lettori. Non solamente mi son contentato a dimostrarvi il vero ritrato del sito della Mirandola, fortezza inespugnabile situata in Lombardia, ma anco ho voluto dimostrare come al tempo de la sedio di Papa jiulio.III. stavasi tutti gli forti col nome l’horo. In Venetia l’Anno .M.D.LXVII. Alla libraria della Colonna. Some toponymic indications are inserted on the plan. Orientation with a rose of the winds, the Northeast on the left.

Perspective plan of the city, with the forts erected in 1551 to defend it from the siege placed by Pope Julius III. The panel bears the address Alla libraria della Colonna which is the imprint of Paolo Forlani. The plan is included in all five known copies of the work Il primo libro delle citta et fortezze del mondo, the first collection of urban cartography of the 1500s, which contains plates by Forlani and Domenico Zenoi. It is also found in some sixteenth-century factual collections of large format.

The plate is reprinted, unchanged, by Bolognino Zaltieri; it is included in two different editions of the work De 'disegni delle più illustri citta, et fortezze del mondo by Giulio Ballino, both published in Venice in 1569. No variant of the plate is known, but the Zaltieri’ editions have a descriptive text on verso

Paolo Forlani, a native of Verona, opened his own chalcographic workshop in Venice, Al segno del pozzo, in 1560, as reflected in some of his works. From 1566 he was active in Merzaria al segno della colonna and from 1569 in Merzaria al segno della nave. Forlani had business relationships with the major publishers of cartographic material of the time, among them Antonio Lafreri, the Bertelli family, and others. In addition to being a talented engraver, he was also quick to execute, a quality that enabled him to work for different publishers at the same time, and to execute a large amount of work. Woodward attributes about one hundred works to Forlani, most of which, however, are unsigned. Between 1560 and 1567, Forlani collaborated with Ferrando Bertelli, for whom he engraved about ten copperplates, with Camocio, Bolognino Zaltieri, and with Claudio Duchetti, for whom he engraved some maps. For his professional activity, however, the collaboration with Giacomo Gastaldi, for whom he engraved thirteen maps, was very important and valuable. In 1567 Forlani published and traded his work Il primo libro delle città et fortezze principali del mondo, whose branches later passed to Bolognino Zaltieri. It is likely that Forlani died during the plague that spread through Venice from 1575.

Beautiful proof, printed on contemporary laid paper, in very good condition.

Bibliografia

S. Bifolco, F. Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, tav. 1147; S. Bifolco, Città e Fortezze Principali del Mondo. Le prime raccolte italiane di cartografia urbana e gli isolari del XVI secolo, in “Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo”, pp. 137-152; Albert Ganado, The Forlani-Zenoi town books of 1567. A description and analysis, in “Florilegium Cartographicum. Beiträge zur Kartographiegeschichte und Vedutenkunde des 16. Bis 18. Jahrhunderts”, a cura di Peter H. Köhl e Peter H. Meurer, Lipsia, 1993, pp. 21-34; Béla Szalai, (adattamento e traduzione inglese Ivan Matković), The Representation of the Hungarian Towns in Domenico Zenoi’s and Paolo Forlani’s Cartographic Work, in “Kartografija i geoinformacije”, Vol.11 (Budapest, No.18 December 2012), pp. 4-37; Vladimiro Valerio, Piante e vedute di Napoli dal 1486 al 1599. L’origine della iconografia urbana europea, Napoli, 1998; p. 40, n. 32 e p. 47, n. 16; David Woodward, Paolo Forlani: Compiler, Engraver, Printer, or Publisher? in Imago Mundi, Vol. 44 (Londra, 1992), pp. 45-64;