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"Separately published and very decorative folding map of southern Italy by famous French Cartographer Jean-Benjamin de La Borde. At the time the map was published, southern Italy was divided into three parts: the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (comprising the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Sicily) and the Papal States. It was not until 1735 that the Habsburg Emperor Charles conveyed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Spanish Bourbons as a secondary geniture, thus expanding their influence in the Mediterranean until Napoleon took Naples in 1799 and only Sicily remained in Spanish-Bourbon possession. The map, joint by two sheets segmented and linen-backed, has a timeless elegance due to its unusual size and fine engraving (Perrier sculp. / Macquet scrip.): The height shading in particular is very well done and shows individual mountains, but also extended chains of mountains in a sculptural, almost three-dimensionally manner. Additionally, the map contains engraved data on sieges, conquests or other historical events in individual places on the coast and inland. Remarkable: In 1817, the product catalog of the Simon Schropp'sche Hof-Landkartenhandlung (Court Map Dealer) in Berlin still offered copies of this map - maybe antiquarian or as an old stock. The map is overall clean, only slightly darkened in places here and there. The upper right map segment is more stained radiating to the adjacent left map segment. An unusual map of pre-Napoleonic Italy by one of the great cartographers of late 18th France. We could find two institutional holdings in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (OCLC 494355159) and the British Library (OCLC 1065122152) but no copy in auction or trade in the last decades. Reference: Catalogue des cartes et ouvrages geographiques qui composent le cabinet de Simon Schropp et Comp. a Berlin (1817), p. 85." (Martin Nell, 2024).