Hannibal's Expedition into Italy with His Marches Traced, d'Anville, 1818

An original copper engraved map, uncolored, of the theater of Hannibal's march, from Espagne and the Isles Baleares across southern Gaule and the Alps to the whole Italian peninsula, with Corse and Sardaigne in the Mer Inférieure. The marches are drawn as a fine double dotted line: through the Tectosages to Narbo-Martius, across the Rhodanus, through the Allobroges and over the mountains to the Taurini, then down through Etruria and on to Cannæ in Apouille. The Mer Ligustique, the Mer Grecque and the Mer Supérieure frame the coasts.

The cartouche at upper right reads Carte pour l'Expédition d'Annibal, sur laquelle son passage en Italie et les principales de ses marches sont tracés, pour l'intelligence de l'Histoire Ancienne de Rollin, Par d'Anville, Géographe ordinaire du Roi. The plate is numbered Pl. 4. above the upper right corner. The block at upper left, headed Echelles, gives Milles des Romains valant 754 Toises, Stades des Grecs, dont 8 valent un Mille and Lieues Françoises, de 3000 Pas Géométriques, with a key line for Marches d'Annibal. No engraver is named on the 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 whose Histoire ancienne the map was drawn to illustrate. The title page states that the atlas was engraved after the original maps of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville (1697 to 1782). Its table of plates carries a foreword signed by Ambroise Tardieu, géographe-graveur, who writes that the maps were copied with religious fidelity and that, charged with reviewing the proofs, he had only negligences and defects of execution to correct. Hannibal led the Carthaginian army from Spain over the Alps into Italy in 218 BC, in the Second Punic War.

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