This map of the region of Verona by Paolo Forlani is one of the rarest of the Lafreri school maps. It was not listed in the first comprehensive survey by R. V. Tooley. Forlani was active as an engraver from about 1560 to 1571. Indeed Woodward in his study of Forlani engravings states that those works dated 1574 which include this item are most probably later states still of earlier works as nothing survives from the years 1572 or 1573. The map is so rare that Woodward could not examine a 1574 edition and only cites the later issues. The map is compiled by Bernardino Brognolo an architect and engineer for the province of Verona. It is the first printed map of the province and takes in the territory of Verona from Trento in the north to Mantova in the south. Lake Garda is prominently displayed and all the main roads are laid out. The whole is adorned with two cartouches a compass rose and an attractive pair of dividers atop the ‘Scala di miglia’. In this state the plate has suffered the loss of the lower left corner broken off where the river was engraved creating a ‘weak’ point for it to break.

There appears to be four states of this map as laid out below.

State 1 – Dated 1574 with the imprint of Simon Pinargenti (reported to Woodward by Albert Ganado)
State 2 – Dated 1574 with the imprint of Francesco Valegio (Vatican)
State 3 – Dated 1596 with the imprint of Francesco Valegio (Novacco Collection at the Newberry Library)
State 4 – Dated 1612 with the imprint of Francesco Valegio (British Library, BN, Florence; offered here)

Almagia ‘Monumenta Cartographica Vaticana 2:12; Perini, Carlos “L’Italia e le sue regioni”, pp. 72-3; Perini, Marcus (2004). ‘History of the Cartography of the Veronese Territory’, in IMCoS Journal no. 99 pp. 5-12; Not in Tooley; Woodward ‘The Maps and Prints of Paolo Forlani’ no. 97.