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Original Color Example of this 16th Century Rarity
This finely engraved map of the Principality of Piedmont (Pedemontanus) was issued around 1579 as part of the rare and clandestinely published Itinerarium Europae Provinciae, later also known as the Itinerarium Orbis Christiani.
Produced in Cologne during a period of intense religious and political instability, the Itinerarium forms a critical component of the body of work associated with the "Cartographic School of Cologne." This group, largely composed of Flemish and Dutch Protestant refugees, included figures such as Frans Hogenberg and Matthias Quad, with Jan Metellus (Jean Matal) recognized as a central contributor to its development.
The map depicts the strategic northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, bordered by the Alps and encompassing major cities such as Turin (Turino) and Pinerolo. Rivers, fortified towns, and principal mountain ranges are carefully rendered, with a strong emphasis on political boundaries and transportation routes. The inclusion of roads between the major towns is quite unusual for a 16th Century map.
The map’s geographical detail closely mirrors the broader framework established by Abraham Ortelius in his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), yet the engraving technique—crisp linework, densely spaced hachures, and ornamental cartouches—more closely follows the style of Frans Hogenberg, reflecting the characteristic aesthetic of Cologne's cartographic production.
The Itinerarium was issued anonymously, without explicit attribution, due to the Catholic authorities' persecution of Protestant publishers and intellectuals. Metellus, himself a Protestant exile from France, continued his cartographic work after fleeing to Louvain and then Cologne, where he remained until his death in 1597. His contributions, alongside those of his contemporaries, formed the backbone of Cologne’s cartographic output during the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The maps from this atlas are now rare, and their association with clandestine production and exile lends them particular historical significance as both geographical and political artifacts of the Reformation era.
Johannes Matalius Metellus, also known as Jean Matal or Johannes Metellus Sequanas, was born in Poligny, Burgundy, France in ca. 1517. A humanist scholar, he was a polymath devoted to cartography, geography, law, paleography, and antiquarianism. Late in life he published a series of atlases; all his maps and atlases are rare and highly sought-after.
Matal was educated at Dole, Freiburg, and several Italian institutions. At Bologna, he met Antonio Agustín, a Spanish legal scholar, who recruited Matal to be his secretary. Together, the men researched ecclesiastical law, with an especial emphasis on Roman legal manuscripts, with trips to Venice, Florence, and elsewhere in Italy to study codices. In 1555, the two traveled to England to meet with Queen Mary on a mission for the Church.
After leaving his employment with Agustín, Matal traveled in the Low Countries and eventually settled in Cologne. There, he mixed with other savants, including especially Georg Cassander and Pedro Ximénez. It was in Cologne that Matal began his serious interest in mapmaking. He contributed to Braun and Hogenberg’s Civitae Orbis Terrarum; Georg Braun described him in glowing terms, “vir omni scientiarum genere praestans"—"a man outstanding in every form of knowledge."
Late in life, Matal began preparing a set of maps of the entire world. In 1594, he published an atlas of France, Austria, and Switzerland (39 maps), in 1595 an atlas of Spain (10 maps), and, posthumously, an atlas of Italy (37 maps), and one of Germany and the Netherlands (55 maps). Many of these maps were combined and augmented into atlases of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the world’s islands. In 1602, a compendium work showcased all of these previous works called Speculum Orbis Terrae; this atlas was well received by contemporaries like Walter Raleigh and is very rare today. Many of these maps and atlases were released after his death in 1598, they were finished by his friend and fellow mapmaker Conrad Loew (Matthias Quad).
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