Italy - Vicenza; Francesco Scoto (1548/ 1622), Mattio Cadorin (detto Bolzetta) - veduta prospettica a volo d'uccello - 1651-1660

Title of the work: Itinerary, or a New Description of the Principal Journeys in Italy. It was the most famous and widespread guide for travelers of the Grand Tour in Italy throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This edition dedicated to Abbot Ruberto Papafava ("Dedicated to the Most Illustrious and Reverend Lord Abbot Ruberto Papafava, Noble of Veneto"), corresponds to the Padua editions from the mid-seventeenth century, in particular those published in 1654, 1659, or 1675.

Printer and Place: Printed in Padua at Mattio Cadorini (or for Cadorino)

Copper engraving in black and white, excellent inking and intaglio printing on laid paper, minimal margins, margin opposite the binding showing wear, small restorations near the editorial fold, browning, oxidation and yellowing; all as in the photo. Good state of preservation, slight traces of foxing and browning. Editorial fold and visible binding marks. Shipping insured via Bartolini/DPD courier. To take advantage of the insurance coverage, any damage to the neck must be contested and reported to the courier at the time of delivery. Otherwise, the insurance refund procedure cannot be activated.

The “Itinerario, overo nuova descrittione de' viaggi principali d'Italia” is a famous seventeenth-century travel guide, originally written in Latin by Francesco Scoto (Franz Schott) and subsequently translated into Italian, expanded and published in various editions between 1629 and 1670 (e.g., after Francesco Bolzetta or Gio. Pietro Brigonci). The book provides a detailed description of travels in Italy, enriched with city plans, bird’s-eye views, and maps, describing the most notable sights to see.

With the name Mattio Cadorin (also known as Matteo Cadorin or under the pseudonym Bolzetta) is mainly referred to an important Italian editor, printer and bookseller of the seventeenth century.

Franz Schott (1548-1622) Italianized (Francesco Scoto)

Franz Schott, in Latin Franciscus Schottus, Italianized Francesco Scoto (Antwerp, 1548 – 1622), was a jurist and Flemish traveler. Brother of Andreas Schott, he was the author of a guide for pilgrims bound for Italy for the Jubilee of 1600: the Itinerarium nobiliorum Italiae regionum, urbium, oppidorum, et locorum. The work achieved enormous success and was translated into Italian, English, French and reprinted until the eighteenth century.

Little is known about the life of the jurist Franz Schott, except that he hailed from Antwerp and studied jurisprudence. As noted, in 1600 Schott published the first edition of the Latin work titled Itinerarii Italiae by Jeans Moretus of Antwerp, with the aim of providing readers—mostly pilgrims traveling to Italy and especially Rome for the Holy Year—with a practical guide for moving about easily.

In 1601, by the work of the two editors from Padua, Francesco Bolzetta and Pietro Bertelli, the second Latin edition of Franz Schott’s Itinerario d’Italia was published in Italy, in Vicenza. The work was enriched with maps of several Italian cities and the text, at the editors’ insistence, was expanded by the intervention of Geronimo Capugnano, a Dominican friar from Bologna. A subsequent Latin edition was published by Pietro Bertelli in 1610 in Vicenza. In 1620 the same author Franz Schott, spurred by the immediate success of his Itinerario, attempted publication of a further Latin edition of the same, extending it to Germany. In 1625, after Schott’s death, his brother Andreas oversaw a new Latin edition of the Itinerario for the new Jubilee year, which was followed by the edition published in Amsterdam in 1655 by the great geographical publisher Jodocus Jansson. This last edition, erroneously attributed to Andreas Schott, included eighteen city maps of Italy, largely derived from Joannes Jansson’s atlas, Illustrium Italiane urbium tabulae and edited in 1657, whose plans had, however, already appeared in 1626 in Nova et accurata Italiane descriptio.

Particularly for the Italian editions, the first Italian edition of Schott’s Itinerario d’Italia was published in Venice in 1610 by the editor Francesco Bolzetta. It was based on the Latin text of 1601 but the title erroneously attributed the work to Andreas Schott. From this first Italian edition all subsequent Italian editions descended. Through Francesco Bolzetta appeared the Vicenza editions of 1615, 1622 and 1638 and the Padua editions of 1629, 1642 and 1649. In all these Italian editions the error of attributing the work to Andreas Schott, rather than to his brother Franz, was maintained. In Rome the Itinerario of Schott was published for the first time in 1650 by the editor Filippo De Rossi, based on the 1649 text. From this edition the attribution of the guide to its rightful author, Franz Schott, was restored. University of Genoa