"Autostrada della Neve" (Anni '50/'60) - School map - ARCHIVAL RARITY: Original Map with the Autograph of the Chief Designer, Engineer Pasqualini - Paper

An incredible piece of Italian infrastructure history: the official cover cartography of the “Preliminary Project – Technical Report” commissioned by the storied “Autostrada della Neve S.p.A.”, based in Milan at 30 Corso Vittorio Emanuele.

The map, printed at a scale of 1:200,000, details the ambitious private highway corridor designed in the postwar era to connect the Lombard industrial heartland with the Alpine valleys and the state borders.

On the route, the nodes and strategic segments studied at the time are clearly visible:
Main route: Milano/Agrate - Merate - Lecco - Colico (with details on the Cassano d'Adda, Treviglio and Caravaggio nodes)
Branch toward Chiavenna and the futuristic Splügen Tunnel
Route toward Morbegno
Cross-border connections toward the Maloja Tunnel-COSA

The collectible value of this map is exceptional, as it is not a simple promotional print but an official working document. At the bottom right, immediately below the scale indication, is the original autograph signature of Engineer Pasqualini, the chief designer and technical director commissioned by the company to draft the graphic surveys and the geometric feasibility report of the work.

In an era of feverish progress, elite professionals like Ing. Pasqualini were hired by major private concessions to challenge the rugged Alpine topography with state-of-the-art viaducts and tunnels, effectively laying the foundations for what today is the region’s modern road network.

This map testifies to the extraordinary era of large private highway concessions in the 1950s and 1960s. The Autostrada della Neve project was never completed in its original form due to Italy’s Zaccagnini Law of 1961, which decided to block private concessions and centralize road planning under public authority. The detailed cartographic studies by Ing. Pasqualini were however acquired and used by ANAS: it is precisely thanks to this project that today exists the Lake Como and Splügen highway, which faithfully follows the route drawn here. A true “surviving project” escaped the dispersion of the era’s corporate archives.

Subject: Original vintage technical cartographic document (1950s/60s).
Scale: 1:200,000
Signature: Original autograph and contemporaneous with Ing. Pasqualini (original archival ink).
Condition: Good vintage condition. Presents the natural and fascinating patina of time that enhances its historical authenticity.
A work of great visual and historical impact, ideal for framing and display in civil engineering or architecture studios, representation offices, or to be included in private collections of historical cartography and 20th-century Italian memorabilia.
The map bears signs of time, small tears and frayed corners.