Italy - Piedmont, Saluzzo, Cuneo, Mondovì, Nice, Monaco, Ventimiglia, Genova Ponente Albenga, Tenda,; Antonio Zatta - Parte del Piemonte, colla Contea di Nizza e la Riviera di Genova a Ponente 1792 - 1781-1800

Old map

Part of Piedmont, with the County of Nice and the Riviera di Genova to the West

From the Map by Engineer Borgonio
Venice, published by Antonio Zatta, 1792

Original copper plate engraving, contemporary border coloring, with a fine figurative cartouche painted in the upper right (tower, trees and waterfall).

Sheet size: about 47 × 35 cm.

The map depicts the western part of Piedmont (Marquessate of Saluzzo, districts of Cuneo, Mondovì and surrounding areas), the entire County of Nice (Nice, Monaco, Ventimiglia, Tenda, Saorgio, etc.) and the Riviera of Genoa to the West up to the areas of Albenga, Oneglia and environs.

They are detailed representations:
• the Alpine orography (Maritime Alps and Prealps) with hachure shading;
• the hydrographic network and roads;
• numerous inhabited centers, villages and minor localities;
• political boundaries highlighted by period coloring.
Scale in Italian miles. Orientation with North at the top.

The map derives from the famous and authoritative topographic-military survey by Giovanni Tommaso Borgonio (c. 1620-1683), Savoyard military engineer at the court of Turin, author of the so-called “Madama Reale Map” (1680, subsequently updated and expanded). Borgonio’s map is considered the first true military topographic map of Piedmont and remained the region’s fundamental cartographic reference for more than a century and a half.

Antonio Zatta (Venice, ca. 1722-1804), one of the leading Italian publishers and cartographers of the late eighteenth century, revisits and disseminates this material with the quality typical of his production, characterized by geographic precision and a balance between accuracy and decorative taste (typical of the transition from Baroque cartography to the more modern style).

The date 1792 places the print in a historically significant moment: on the eve of the French occupation of Nice (September 1792) and the radical territorial transformations following the Revolutionary Wars. The map thus documents the geo-political arrangement of the County of Nice and the Ligurian West still under Savoyard rule, shortly before its disappearance as an autonomous historical entity.

Copies of this map (or closely related ones from Zatta’s Piedmont cycle) with vivid original coloring and a well-preserved cartouche are not common on the market and are sought after by both collectors of Italian cartography and those interested in the history of the Côte d’Azur, the Maritime Alps and the Kingdom of Sardinia.

A good specimen, with the typical signs of time (folds, light paper oxidation) but colors still fresh and a sharp impression.