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Description

The Eleven Regions of Italy During Roman Times, with Roman Roads Shown

Rare map of ancient Italy, engraved by Joanne Baptiste Liebaux for Guillaume De L'Isle in 1715. 

The map illustrates the eleven regions of Italy established by Augustus.  At the beginning of the Roman Imperial era, Italy was a collection of territories with different political statuses. Some cities, called municipia, had some independence from Rome, while others, the coloniae, were founded by the Romans themselves. Around 7 BC, Augustus divided Italy into eleven regions, as illustrated by the map.

To the side of the map is a chart displaying the subdivisions of the country as classed by hierarchy, with five separate levels of organization, which appear to be shown on the map. This chart bears a Mariette imprint from 1667.

A later state of the map also exists that bears the later imprint of De L'Isle's successor, Philippe Buache.

Condition Description
Original hand-color in outline. Couple of wormholes around the centerfold. Additional engraved toponymic sheet onlaid to the left margin.
Guillaume De L'Isle Biography

Guillaume De L'Isle (1675-1726) is probably the greatest figure in French cartography. Having learned geography from his father Claude, by the age of eight or nine he could draw maps to demonstrate ancient history.  He studied mathematics and astronomy under Cassini, from whom he received a superb grounding in scientific cartography—the hallmark of his work. His first atlas was published in ca. 1700. In 1702 he was elected a member of the Academie Royale des Sciences and in 1718 he became Premier Geographe du Roi

De L'Isle's work was important as marking a transition from the maps of the Dutch school, which were highly decorative and artistically-orientated, to a more scientific approach. He reduced the importance given to the decorative elements in maps, and emphasized the scientific base on which they were constructed. His maps of the newly explored parts of the world reflect the most up-to-date information available and did not contain fanciful detail in the absence of solid information. It can be fairly said that he was truly the father of the modern school of cartography at the commercial level. 

De L’Isle also played a prominent part in the recalculation of latitude and longitude, based on the most recent celestial observations. His major contribution was in collating and incorporating this latitudinal and longitudinal information in his maps, setting a new standard of accuracy, quickly followed by many of his contemporaries. Guillaume De L’Isle’s work was widely copied by other mapmakers of the period, including Chatelain, Covens & Mortier, and Albrizzi.