Composite: No I-XXIII

"The volume is without binding in loose sheets, but with original bands on the back, a sign of an ancient binding. The content: frontispiece, an engraved index of the tables, 23 numbered tables (I-XXIII) and two original white guard sheets. The folded maps volume measures 68x54 cm, every single sheet 68x98cm. White thick paper in excellent condition, almost perfect. Table III, relating to the Gulf of Naples, is present here in the first edition engraved by Aniello Cataneo in 1785. This table was replaced in 1794 with a new copper engraved this time by Giuseppe Guerra. It is therefore a first edition of the Atlas printed before 1794. Some cards have the SM monogram, initial monogram by “Stefano Merola” from Traetto (a town near Gaeta), to whom the production of paper sheets was entrusted in the imperial format for printing of the geographical maps and for the use of Stamperia Reale, the Royal printing house of Naples (Valerio 1993, p . 158). Other sheets present a cruciferous lamb inserted in a large floral frame (Heawood 2845) and the name "Vittorj" in countermark. It is one of the most important cartographic realizations of the XVIII century, both for the size (23 paper of imperial format), and for being the first nautical Atlas designed on scientific bases in Italy. The interest of the admiral John Acton, who arrived in Naples in 1778 to rearrange the fleet, was decisive for the solicitous execution of the maritime Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples, using staff and ships of the borbonica regia fleet. It is claimed in the cartouche with a title placed in the first table, dated 1785. In just 11 years Neapolitan chartmakers and topographers managed to build an exact and detailed chart of the continental part of the Kingdom of Naples in scale about 1: 90,000. The Maritime Atlas affirmed itself in the European cartographic horizon as one of the first large-scale national hydrographic works - remember that only in 1795 was established the hydrographic office of the Admiralty. To complete this important work, the Court decided to entrust some artists, under the guidance and artistic control of the Hackert brothers, the task of creating a worthy title page. After a first assignment to Domenico Mondo (a court panter), who did not satisfy the expectations of the court, was involved the German painter Cristoforo Kniep, who created two drawings one of which was chosen by the Hackerts and was engraved by Giuseppe Guerra in 1792. It is the most impressive and important frontispiece made in the entire Neapolitan publishing." (Vladimiro Valerio, 2024, this copy from his private collection) (see our 15326.000 for the second edition) (Many of these maps are early versions of the coastal and topographic maps in the 1808 Atlante geografico del regno di Napoli by Rizzi Zannoni, see our 6854.00)
V. Valerio, Sulla struttura geometrica di alcune carte di Giovanni Antonio Rizzi Zannoni (1736-1814), «La Scena Territoriale», 9-10 (1981); G. Alisio, V. Valerio (eds.), Cartografia Napoletana dal 1781 al 1889, Napoli, Prismi 1983.: 124, 125; V. Valerio, Società Uomini e Istituzioni Cartografiche nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia, Firenze, Istituto Geografico Militare 1993, pp. 141-145; V. Valerio, Atlante Marittimo del Regno di Napoli 1785-1792, Napoli, Voyage Pittoresque 2006; V. Valerio (ed.) L’Italia del Cavaliere Rizzi Zannoni. Carte a stampa dei territori italiani, catalog of the exhibition, Civitella del Lago September, 19-21 2014, Associazione Roberto Almagià. Associazione Italiana Collezionisti di Cartografia antica, 2014, pp. 56-59.