Ancient Italy and the Dalmatian Coast, d'Anville Rollin Atlas, 1818

An original copper engraved map, uncolored, of ancient Italy proper, from Liguria, Bononia and Ravenna south to the north coast of Sicily, with the Dalmatian shore across the Adriatic. The Mer Adriatique, the Mer Tyrrhene and the Golfe de Tarente are lettered, and the regions are named in French: Etrurie, Picenum, Samnium, Campanie, Apouille, Lucanie and Bruttium. Florentia, Perusia, Ravenna, Ancona, Rome, Capua, Neapolis, Beneventum, Paestum, Tarentum, Brundusium, Crotona and Rhegium are placed, and Cannae is marked near the Aufidus in Apulia. Ilva and Capreae lie offshore with the Aeolian islands to the south, and the Dalmatian coast carries Salona, Issa, Pharus and Raguse.

The cartouche at lower left reads L'Italie proprement dite, pour l'intelligence de l'Histoire Romaine de Rollin, par d'Anville, Géographe ord.re du Roi. The plate is numbered Pl. 16 above the upper right corner of the border. Three scale bars stand below the cartouche: Milles des Romains, valant 754 Toises., Stades des Grecs, dont 8 valent un Mille. and Lieues Françaises, de 3000 Pas Géometriques. The graticule is numbered in degrees, and a light center fold runs through the double sheet.

The plate comes from the Atlas de Géographie Ancienne, published in Paris in 1818 by Ledoux et Tenré and printed by Didot le jeune to accompany the works of Charles Rollin (1661 to 1741), the French historian, author of the Histoire ancienne and the Histoire romaine. Its maps are engraved after the originals of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697 to 1782). In the foreword, signed by Ambroise Tardieu, géographe-graveur, Tardieu writes that the maps were copied with religious fidelity and that, charged with reviewing the proofs, he corrected only negligences and faults of execution. The map serves Rollin's Roman history for the conquest of the peninsula and the wars fought on Italian soil.

This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.