Lafreri atlases
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From about 1544, many individual maps where printed in Italy, especially in the important trading centers of Rome and Venice. Each publisher worked independently, producing maps based upon their own needs. The maps often varied dramatically in size.
Over time, it became common to bind the maps together into composite works. Although the term atlas was not in use before 1570, these works are now called "IATO" atlases - (Italian, Assembled to Order) or more frequently "Lafreri atlases" after one of the leading publishers of the period. Antonio Lafreri is thought to be the one to first add an engraved title page to a collection of maps around 1570-72 [1], that is at the same time of the publication of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in Antwerp.
Each of the atlases was put together based on the requirements of the client out of a list of available maps, so there are no two identical such atlases. Today about 60-70 such atlases are known, most of them in institutions. These atlases are very important to the history of cartography as a big number of Italian maps of the 16th century have survived due to these atlases.
Because of their lovely engraving style and their rarity, Lafreri maps are very valued by antique maps collectors.
[edit] Cartographers of the Lafreri atlases
Here are the most important cartographers that were involved in some way in the publication of the Lafreri maps and atlases:
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- Giacomo Gastaldi - Venice, the most important Italian mapmaker of his time
- Battista Agnese - Genoa
- Antonio Lafreri (or Lafrery) - the Rome publisher of some of the composite atlases
- Antonio Salamanca - Lafreri's partner
- Giovani Francesco Camocio - Venice
- Donato Bertelli - Venice
- Ferando Bertelli - Venice
- Paolo Forlani - Venice
