First state of this early map of Cyprus from Camocio's Isole Famose.
Stylianou states:
'Cipro insula ..., with the coasts of Caramania and Soria, is depicted with east at the top. . . In the top right, we have the historical descriptive note: Cipro insula nobiliss.a di grandezza tutte le altre eccede, et detta Beata p(er) la sua mirabile fertilita di uino, grano, oglio, lino, babagio, lane legnami, uitrioli, sale, pece, metalli, et e diuisa in 11 contadi, tient di circuito mill. 550. longezza mill. 110. largezza mill. 65. distante di Soria mill. 60. dalla caramaniia (sic) mill. 50. di Candia mill. 500. la principal citta regia e Nicossia distante di Famagosta mill. 38.
The map of the island the island is divided into the same 11 districts. Nicosia is shown in birdseye view style. On the coast of Caramania, several formations of Turkish troops are shown preparing for the attack, which would place the date of the map as about July 1570.
This is state 1, lacking the plate number 2 at the bottom right corner.
The Lafreri School is a commonly used name for a group of mapmakers, engravers, and publishers who worked in Rome and Venice from ca. 1544 to 1585. The makers, who were loosely connected via business partnerships and collaborations, created maps that were then bound into composite atlases; the maps would be chosen based on the buyer or compiler’s interests. As the maps were initially published as separate-sheets, the style and size of maps included under the umbrella of the “School” differed widely. These differences can also be seen in the surviving Lafreri atlases, which have maps bound in with varying formats including as folded maps, maps with wide, trimmed, or added margins, smaller maps, etc.
The most famous mapmakers of the School included Giacomo Gastaldi and Paolo Forlani, among others. The School’s namesake, Antonio Lafreri, was a map and printseller. His 1572 catalog of his stock, entitled Indice Delle Tavole Moderne Di Geografia Della Maggior Parte Del Mondo, has a similar title to many of the composite atlases and thus his name became associated with the entire output of the larger group.