1677 De Wit Map of Italy

This is a first-state example of Frederik de Wit's map of Italy, engraved as early as 1671.

A Closer Look

The map covers the Italian Peninsula in its entirety and includes the Dalmatian Coast (at the time controlled by the Republic of Venice) as well as the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and parts of Sicily. As with virtually every map of Italy produced in the 17th century, De Wit follows the model established by Magini's monumental 1608 Italia Nuova. Magini's map was justifiably influential, rendering the whole of Italy and its islands in detail, with the river systems clearly presented and mountains shown pictorially.

The map is richly decorative, with a beautiful allegorical cartouche in the upper right featuring two putti on the wing and a seated, imperious woman wearing a castle-crown surmounted with a star: Italia Turrita e Stellata, 'turreted and stellate Italy,' the allegorical personification of Italy. Seated with a cornucopia at her side, the Italia Turrita is an icon of Italian civic heraldry. Her walled crown appears in the iconography of many Italian cities, symbolically conveying the royalty and nobility of Italy, while the cornucopia alludes to its agricultural abundance. The star represents Italy's 'stellar' destiny.

In the lower left, the scales of the map are given in French, Italian, and German miles. These are displayed on a plinth, upon which a third putto plays with navigational instruments. De Wit's seas are plied by seven superbly engraved ships, and a fierce naval battle is occurring in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

The Crypto-Island of 'M. Sardo'

As authoritative as Magini's 1608 wall map Italia Nuova was, one of its hallmarks was the placement of a mysterious, mountainous island, 'M. Sardo', in the Gulf of Taranto. Despite being reproduced faithfully on nearly every 17th-century map of the peninsula, the origins of this imaginary island have long been obscure. More recently, the scholar-collector Vladimirio Valerio discovered a notation on the Otranto map in the 1595 Stigliola manuscript Atlas of the Kingdom of Naples (added to his collection in 1975). On that manuscript, a crude mountain-hump is mapped in the Gulf of Taranto - the first known instance in print or otherwise of any such 'M. Sardo' in those waters. While no such island exists, there is, near the tip of Otranto, a mountaintop village - Monte Sardo - notable for its visibility both from the Gulf of Otranto and the Gulf of Venice. Thus, the manuscript 'M. Sardo' is a crude coastal profile highlighting an observable coastal navigational feature. Valerio theorizes that, in compiling his masterpiece map of Italy, Magini consulted the Stigliola as the best and most detailed map of southern Italy. In doing so, he misinterpreted the navigational notation, preserving it as a literal mountain in the middle of the Gulf and retaining the name M. Sardo. Magini's work was so authoritative that Blaeu copied the map, errors and all. In turn, with few exceptions, the rest of the European mapmaking community followed.

Publication History and Census

De Wit's original engraving was executed between 1671 and 1676 as a separate issue or for inclusion in composite atlases such as Visscher's Atlas Contractus. (We see an example of this particular state of the map in a 1677 Visscher atlas, for example.) A second state of the map, with more place names marked around Corsica and more sea notations, would appear in De Wit's own atlas in the following decade. At least one further state, bearing De Wit's privilege, was printed around 1690. After his death, the plate was sold to Peter Mortier and reissued with additions by his successors Covens and Mortier. The map, with a variety of dates, appears to be well-represented in institutional collections.