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Description

First state of Forlani's separately published map of the area centered on Verona, Lago di Garda and the Adige River in Northeastern Italy.

The map extends from Mantua and the Po River in the south to the area around Trento and the Dolomites.

The map is based upon a manuscript map drawn by the Venetian mapmaker Bernardo Brognolo (also Brognoli or Brugnoli/o). The Brognoli/Forlanis map thereafter served nearly for a century as the cartographic model of the region, used by Ortelius (beginning in 1575) and thereafter by Blaeu and others.

Bifolco notes that some sources attribute the map directly to a map drawn by the Brescia painter Sebastiano di Aragona, dated 1571.  The map's publishing history is quite complex.

States of the Map

Bifolco identifies 8 states of the map, all rare:

  1. Forlani imprinted, dated Ottobre M D LXXIIII.
  2. Imprint of Forlani and Simon Pinargenti.
  3. Imprint of Andrea Bertelli
  4. Imprint of Francesco Valegio
  5. Valegio imprint -- date changed to MDXCVI.
  6. Valegio imprint -- dated changed to MDCXII.
  7. Imprintd of Stefano Scolari F. in Venetia a s. Zulian.
  8. Date changed to MDCC.

An example dated 1700 was recently sold at the Reiss & Sohn auction.  

Rarity

This is the first of 8 states of the map, all of which are very rare. 

Condition Description
Minor staining. Minor loss at lower center.
Reference
Bifolco Ronca, Cartografia e Topografia Italia del XVI secolo, #967.
Paolo Forlani Biography

Paolo Forlani (fl. ca. 1560-1571) was a prolific map engraver based in Venice. All that is known of his life are his surviving maps and prints, of which there are almost 100 (185 with later states included in the total). He also produced a globe and two town books.  It is likely he came from Verona and that he died in Venice in the mid-1570s, possibly of the plague.