MOSCOVIA

At the top center, the title is impressed: MOSCOVIA In the box at the bottom right, a long explanation of the table is engraved: Questa Città è la principale della provincia di RUSSIA, è la m età maggiore di Praga in Boemia. In essa si cantengano due sorti di edifici: impero che tutti i casame[n]ti privati sono di legno, ed i pubblici, come tempi, e palazzi sono murati di mattoni, si come anco sono le mura, che la circondano. Il numero delle case raccolto per ordine del Principe avanza il numero 41500. Il fiume che la bagna, le arreca gran comodità, perché per esso si conducano tutte le materie appartenenti al fabbricare e le mercantie, che la fanno abondevole, il quale è in parte navigabile, se bene la tortuosità el vario giramento suo dà grandissima difficultade al navigare. L’aria è di maniera sana che non vi si avvicina già mai la peste, ma in ceve di essa, i corpi alcune volte patano un certo male nel capo, e negli instestini, da loro nominato Calore, non molto dissimile alla pestilenza e quelli che da cotal malattia sono soprapresi, muoiono in pochissimi giorni. Vi si patano grandissimi freddi, onde advengano crudelissimi, e maravigliosi ghiacciati, atti non solo al condensamento del’acque, ma ad occidere gli animali, e le piante. Vi si sentano altresi grandissimi caldi, e dannevoli grandemente à ciascuna cosa che vive. In the lower left corner, we find the editorial imprint Matteo Florimj for. Jn Siena.

Map of the city published in Siena by Matteo Florimi. Based on the map by Sigismund Herberstein, published in the Moscoviter Wunderbare Historien (Basel 1563), the plan is a faithful replica of the analogous work inserted in the Civitatus Orbis Terrarum, by Braun & Hogenberg (1575). The fortified walls of the city are perfectly outlined, as are the multiple churches. The city is represented surrounded by the Moskva and Neglinnaya rivers and the moat, designed by the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin (Novy). The eastern wall is defended by a huge wall with many towers built between 1584 and 1591 by a craftsman called Fyodor Kon. In the foreground, a number of armed Russian soldiers are shown on horseback. The depiction reflects Moscow's growing military power under Grand Duke Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible), who was the first to assume the title of Tsar of Russia and who founded the city as the capital of the Grand Duchy of Russia in 1547.

Etching and engraving, printed on contemporary laid paper with "eagle in circle with crown" watermark (similar to Woodward n. 64), with margins, restorations in the central fold visible from the verso, otherwise in good condition.

Rare work, recorded for only 9 institutional examples according to Bifolco-Ronca (cf. Cartografia e Topografia Italiana del XVI secolo, p. 1248).

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. 536; Elisa Boffa, Un tipografo calabrese a Siena: Matteo Florimi, in “Accademia dei Rozzi” (2013): II, n. 19; H.A.M. van der Heijden, Matteo Florimi (+1613) – Landkarten und Stadtplanverleger in Siena, in “Florilegium Cartographicum”, Lipsia (1993): n. 31; Ganado (1994): III, n. 196 & p. 210, n. 18; Shirley (2004): III, n. 41.