SICILIAE Regnorum

In the cartouche in the upper left corner is engraved the title SICILIAE Regnorum. In the lower right, in the sea, the scale Miliaria Italica communia (30 miles = mm 56) is depicted. Orientation in the four sides in the center with the names of the cardinal points: Septentrio, Meridies, Oriens, Occidens; north is at the top. Graduation in the margins (the degree is divided into 18 notches), 35° 30' to 38° 11' latitude and 35° 27' to 40° 17' longitude.

“Anonymous map, lacking date and editorial indications, attributed to the printing house of Matteo Florimi. The map does not bring anything new from a geographical point of view, as it is a faithful copy of Gerard Mercator's Sicilia Regnum (1589), with minimal changes. Graphically, the work shows strong similarities, both in line and inscriptions, with Giovanni Antonio Magini's maps engraved by the Flemish artist Arnold van Scherpenseel (Italianized Arnoldo de Arnoldi), to whom the carving of the present plate can also be attributed. The map was previously considered anonymous and known only in the examples preserved at the British Museum and the Vatican Library. We first attributed its engraving to Florimi in our bibliography L'Italia e le sue Regioni (2014), followed by Valerio who dates the map to about 1600. Other examples of the map have recently appeared; we were able to examine the one sold at auction by Reiss & Sohn and a second in the sixteenth-century collection sold by Christie's New York in 2011. The latter, shows an "eagle in the circle with crown" watermark that Woodward, in his study of watermarks on 16th-century Italian maps, identifies as typical of the paper used in Siena by Florimi around 1590. An example of Florimi's Sicily is included in a composite atlas in the British Library. During our research we have found other examples of the plate, preserved at the Biblioteca Angelica of Rome and in the Bertarelli Collection in Milan” cfr. Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2102).

Etching and engraving, impressed on contemporary laid 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 4 institutional examples according Bifolco-Ronca (see Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo,, p. 2102).

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. 1063; Christie’s (2011): n. 68; Shirley (2004): p. 394, n. 34; Arrigoni-Bertarelli (1930): n. 2472; Bifolco (2013): cat. 48, n. 38; Bifolco-Ronca (2014): n. 145; BM, Maps XIII, n. 369; La Gumina (2015): n. 64; Reiss & Sohn (2012): n. 4309; Valerio-Spagnolo (2014): n. 73; Woodaward (1996): n. 73.