Il Lazio con le sue più cospicue strade antiche e moderne..

Once he had realized his project to renovate and enlarge Rome, Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi) charged quite a few topographers and agronomists to realize the Roman countryiside land registry, putting the Jesuit Francesco Eschinardi in charge of the cartographic part. The best maps have been drawn by Giovan Battista Cingolati and Ameti, who realized two big size maps of the Northern and Southern neighbourhood of Rome. As Almagià points out, the two maps could be joined to form just one print, since they share a part where the river Tiber and Rome are depicted.

This work is basically after Innocenzo Mattei’s (1626-79), a Camaldolese monk, who was official geographer of Clemente X and realized his work in 1666. When compared to Mattei’s Tavola esatta dell’antico Latio e Nova Campagna di Roma, Ameti’s work shows many analogies in different fields: classical references, the names of the streets, etc. It differs from its sources on the addiction of new places, especially along the coasts.

The first map (St. Peter’s Heritage) presents a big cartouche on upper left, with the date, 1691, and the printer’s name, Domenico de Rossi, together with dedication to the Cardinal Francesco Nerli. The description of the territory is quite detailed, with wods, heights, the small towns and the lakes of Bolsena, Bracciano and Orbetello. The map of Latium, dedicated to the Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, has been printed three years before and presents a better relief of the Pontine marshes, and even the hydrography is quite different. Ameti’s map have been included, together with Mattei’s, in the second edition of De Rossi’s Mercurio Geografico. Copperplates, realized in four plates each, joined together in the past, with the technique of etching.

Example in excellent condition, trimmed to platemark; sings of glue along the old folds.

Bibliografia

Frutaz, Le carte del Lazio, pp. 75-77; Almagià, Documenti Cartografici dello Stato Pontificio, pp. 40-42, 73; A. Bonazzi, Il Mercurio geografico: il gioco e la differenza, in “Giacomo Cantelli: geografo del Serenissimo”, Bologna, 1995, p. 37-44 e 150-152.