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Dear all,the site ( http://www.mapsandimages.it/ ) now host 613 images and may be placed among the "Large General Sites", according to Tony's definition in Maphistory. The images are all digitized with Metis instruments (italian makers), among the best instruments nowadays on the market in the world, and the site has been settled and worked by Hyperborea (Pisa) and Mida (Bergamo) leaders in the management and running of websites in Italy. The site is far more than an Italian centered collection even if most of the material has been published or produced in Italy. General Atlases represents all the countries in the world and those by Benedetto Marzolla (one, just one copy, is also in the Rumsey Collection) are particularly remarkable for the quality of information, for the size, for the references and sources always declared on the map and for the statistical and historico- geographical description written on any map. Now we have in the net the complete cartographical work of Marzolla. No other cartographer, but Coronelli in Geoweb (Marciana Venice), has in the world his entire production on the web, and Coronelli is not available (on the web) at a so high resolution and quality as Marzolla is! I have also recently published a volume on Marzolla with a biography and a list of all his works: books, atlases, loose sheets maps, manuscript and so on (Vladimiro Valerio, Benedetto Marzolla. Brindisino, Geografo e Cartografo dell’800 Europeo, Manduria, Barbieri Selvaggi 2008, over 150 maps reproduced) which seems to be the first printed complete cartobliography of a Mapmaker!
The same we can say for the almost unknown Geographer and Engraver Giuseppe Rodini. All his atlases with finely engraved maps are on the web.
In the window "atlases" you may also find the first italian regional atlas, a manuscript attributed to Nicola Antonio Stigliola (ca 1595) and used by Magini for his Italy (Bologna 1620). A true cartographical monument, the primary "source" for the other five manuscript copies so far known (Paris BN, Vatican Library, Naples NL, Bari NL, Malta NL) all executed in the XVII century and missing the great amount of information kept in the original by Stigliola (routes, distance in miles, post, Low Court, ports with depth, fortresses and castles, inhabitated centers with "fuochi" for taxation, index of placenames with geometrical coordinates and so on).
Among the atlases is a very rare Portulano delle coste della Spagna, an italian edition published in Naples in 1824-25 (partially in lithography) of a portulano published in Cadiz, with 63 charts of spanish harbours and ports and bays. I also started to put in the site an impressive collection of 270 charts published by the Direccion de Hidrografia in Madrid from the end of the XVIII century to 1866. The maps are bound in five volumes the first of which contains 53 charts of North America from Terranova to Florida, the Caribbean and Central America and has been digitized and put on the web. The charts are in the impressive format of 100x70 cm and 50x70 the smaller and are in mint condition for bound in atlas form and never used. It is the most important collection of Spanish Charts in the world apart from the one in the Museo Naval in Madrid. Anyway, I gave two images to Martin Méras when she published her volume on the Direccion Hydrografica as she could not find copies of those two charts anywhere. The other four volumes are related to: 2) Atlantic South America from Rio de le Amazoni to Antarctica (26 charts); 3) Atlantic Europe from Holland to Cadiz (63 charts); 4) Africa from Gibraltar to Red Sea and Asia from Arabia to Malacca (58 charts); 5) Asia from Malacca to Korea, with Indonesia and Philippines (70 charts).
The window "key sheets" hosts multisheet maps. They are all italian but of very great historical, scientific and artistical importance. My aim is to have at disposal on the web all the geodetical maps of the late Italian states (XVIII-XIX c.) and now we may dispose of Piedmont (around 1850-1865), Tuscany (1806), Kingdom of Naples (1769 and 1788-1812), Padoan area (1780), a military area in Lombardy- Venetian state published in Turin for war purposes in 1859 (1:43 200!), Parma and Piacenza in two different states (1828 and 1847), and an impressive chart of the Adriatic Sea in 20 sheets (1:175 000) published by Austrian Army in Milan in 1822-24. I have ready digitized two small atlases by Rizzi Zannoni (Paris 1762) and Remondini (Venice 1800), the second volume of Spanish charts devoted to Atlantic South America (with among the others, a striking map of Falkland, 100x70) and an edition of Stieler's Hand- Atlas (1848).
Any map has a short but precise descritpion, made following a card adopted by me in any of my studies on maps in the last 25 years, just adapting the general scheme to the local situation (manuscript, prints, items from archives, pursposes to be achieved etc.). I hate images abandoned in the web avoiding any kind of description and information. The card I suggested to, and well accepted by, my associates-friends has also two measures in mm (copperplate and printed frame), scales (registered from the map and natural scale), and I also decided to give the projection. In the case of map in Mercator Projection I give the dimension of the degree of longitude, which is necessary and sufficient to calculate the crescent scales (at the latitudes of the map), colours, orientation, notes, toponyms and . . . bibliographical reference, apart from date, publisher, place of production, way of reproduction and other basic information.
The next stop will be the possibility to acquire high resolution files for any use. As declared in the home page, we also intend to host other relevant public or private collections, with thesamestandard of digitization and description.
I know you may well appreciate my intention and any suggestion for improvements is welcome. Sorry for the lenght, but I do hope it will be of some help for the general discusion on how to create map website and use them.
Ciao. vladimiro
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