Carta DELLA POLONIA Designata da Leonardo Chodzko

Very rare and important Italian edition of the map of Lithuania by Leonard Chodzko (1800 - 1871), signed in plate by imprint J. Carolus Castellini sculpsit. Florentiae.  Datable to about 1840.

The map is not covered in the catalog of Tomasz Niewodmiczański's collection, Imago Poloniae, Das polnisch-litauische Reich in Karten, Dokumenten und alten Drucken in der Sammlung von Tomaszm Niewodniczanski, Warsaw 2002. The only example that we have surveyed is kept at The Polish Museum in Rapperswil Castle:

https://mapy.muzeum-polskie.org/katalog-map-crp/carta-della-polonia-designata-da-leonardo-chodzko

Leonard Chodzko (1800 – 1871)  Polish historian and literary scholar, born in Oborek, in the former palatinate of Wilna (today's Vilnius), on November 6, 1800, descended from an ancient and noble Lithuanian family. He was the son of Louis Chodzko, deputy to the Diet of Grodno (Hrodna) and a participant of the Kosciuszko Insurrection, and cousin of the orientalist Alexander Chodzko. He studied law at Vilnius University from 1816 &1817 where he met Adam Mickiewicz. In 1819 he became the personal secretary to Michal Kleofas Oginski, with whom he left Lithuania in 1822. After a four-year stay in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and England, he settled permanently in Paris in 1826 where he took an active part in politics before and after the November Uprising of 1830. Member of the Royal Academy of Nancy; of the philotechnical society; of the geography society; of the French society of universal statistics of Paris. Decorated in July, Grenadier of the Polish National Guard, Captain Aide-de-Camp of General La Fayette. Member of the Polish National Committee. At the time of the revolution of 1830, he was captain aide-de-camp to La Fayette, and became a member of the main Polish committees. He was successively employed at the university library at the Sorbonne, sub-librarian at Saint-Geneviève, and librarian at the Ministry of Public Instruction in Paris.

Nothing is known about the author of the map, Carlo (or Giovanni Carlo) Castellini. Jacopo Graberg writes of him [Ultimi progressi della Geografia, in “Museo di Scienze e Letteratura”, Anno I, Vol. III, Napoli 1844, p. 62] “Giustizia vuole nondimeno, che pei lavori ne’ caratteri esprimenti i nomi delle località, fiumi, ec. Non si passi qui sotto silenzio il valente incisore toscano Carlo Castellini, che scrisse la bella mappa dell’Africa boreale di Girolamo segato, e quella di Marocco inserita nel mio Specchio geografico e statistico di quell’Impero”.

Copperplate engraving, with contemporary coloring of the borders, printed on contemporary paper, small tear in the lower right corner, otherwise in good condition.