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Description

Giovanni Antonio Magini’s Italia antica di Cl. Tolomeo is a Ptolemaic map of Italy, drawn for his monumental atlas L’Italia, which was conceived in the late 16th century and published posthumously by his son Fabio Magini between 1620 and 1640. This map is the only Ptolemaic representation included in the atlas and is largely based on Gerard Mercator’s 1578 edition, published in Cologne.

Magini’s atlas was the first to be entirely dedicated to Italy, featuring 61 geographical maps of the Italian peninsula and representing a significant advancement in cartography. Magini’s meticulous work involved both printed and manuscript sources, which he combined to offer a comprehensive and modern depiction of Italy. He employed two renowned engravers of the time, the Belgian Arnoldo Arnoldi and the Englishman Benjamin Wright, to produce the finely detailed plates. The final product was groundbreaking in its originality and influenced Italian cartography well into the 18th century.

This map, in particular, showcases Magini’s ability to blend historical cartographic traditions with more contemporary geographic understanding. It highlights the regions and settlements of ancient Italy, with careful attention to detail in both the land and maritime regions. The decorative cartouche and ornate embellishments reflect the typical artistic style of the period while grounding the map firmly in the scholarly traditions of Renaissance cartography. 

Giovanni Antonio Magini Biography

Giovanni Antonio Magini was an accomplished Italian cartographer, astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician—in short, a Renaissance man. Born in Padua, he studied philosophy in Bologna. His first publication was Ephemerides coelestium motuum, an astronomical treatise published in 1582. In 1588 he was selected, over Galileo Galilei, to fill the chair of mathematics at the University of Bologna. He died in that city in 1617.

Magini operated under a geocentric understanding of the universe and created his own planetary theory consisting of eleven rotating spheres. He published this theory in Novæ cœlestium orbium theoricæ congruentes cum observationibus N. Copernici (Venice, 1589). In the 1590s he published works on surveying and trigonometry, as well as invented a calculator. In 1596, he published a commentary of Ptolemy’s Geographia, which was published in several editions and languages. He labored for years on an atlas of Italy, which was printed posthumously in 1620. To pay for this project, Magini served as the math tutor to the son of the Duke of Mantua, as well as being the court astrologer to the Duke.