First edition of Blaeu's celebrated Latin town atlas of Rome and the Lazio region. The most important and sumptuous town book of Rome and the surround area published in the seventeenth century.

The two volume were issued together and should stand as such. The same year, Blaeu also published a volume devoted the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. The great map publisher had envisaged several other volumes covering the whole of the peninsular, however, only three more volumes concentrating on Lombardy, Savoy, and Piedmont would be published posthumously.

The first volume lavishly illustrates and describes the splendind historical sites once scattered throughout the Papal States in alphabetical order, from Ancona, Ascoli, Assisi and Avignon to Bologna, Cesena, Gubbio, Fabriano, Fano, Faenza, Ferrara, Imola, Loreto, Macerata, Orvieto, Perugia, Pesaro, Rimini, San Marino, Spoleto, Todi, Tivoli, Viterbo and Urbino. It opens with an overview of Baroque Rome, including a remarkable map of the city with the emblems of the 14 rioni.

The second volume focuses on the beauties of the Eternal City, beginning with a double-page map of the ancient Rome and dwelling in particular on theatres, stadia and obelisks. The latter subject is elucidated in its historical aspects and connections with the ancient Egypt, providing interpretations of the hieroglyphics (including Kircher's) and illustrating in detail, amongst the other examples, Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and the transportation of the Vatican obelisk in 1586 (the latter in an exquisite series of 14 plates, featuring two folding ones on four pages). All faces and inscriptions of the Roman obelisks are carefully depicted, mostly relying on Kircher.

Blaeu had travelled to Italy in his youth and had made several contacts there. Around 1660, when the plans for the Italian town atlas were being finalised, he sent his 23 year old son, Pieter, to Italy to renew these relationships.

In the foreword, Blaeu discusses some of the principal sources used in the work:

"Before taking my leave of you, I would like you to know that some learned men's patronage has helped me very much, both with the gathering of precise drawings of the towns and with the descriptions thereof. Amongst them Carlo Emanuele Vizzani deserves the first place. He treated my son in Rome, while he was still amongst the living, with unusual consideration and after his return to his country he bestowed this consideration on me as well by supplying several proofs of it when the occasion arose. This is the Vizzani esteemed because of his noble birth, who was famous for his writings, who was Consistorial Advocate and who because of his versatile erudition was promoted to the dignity of assessor at the Holy Office. I must confess I have gained many things through him, firstly from the Senate of Bologna a very detailed drawing and description of their town; from Innocenzo Conti, general master of the Campo of the Church of Rome and highest manager of military works, Ferrara, Urbino, Pesaro, Civita Vecchia, and others. He was to contribute much more, but unfortunately the Fates intervened [Vizzani died in 1661]. From Antonio Rota [maps of] Ascoli Piceno. Gubbio from Vincenzo Armanni. Terni from Francesco Simonetta. I mention their names explicitly to honour and to praise them and to stimulate other people to promote my objectives and above all to avoid the appearance of vanity, as though I would want to gather honour for myself through efforts by other people "

Carlo-Emanuele Vizzani (1617-1661), mentioned in Blaeu's introduction was a philosopher and lawyer. In 1657, Blaeu published a new edition of Vizzani's De mandatis principum. This work, originally published in 1633 in Bologna, is devoted to the magistrates of the Roman Empire. In 1661 he published "On the Nature of the Universe", Vizzani's Latin translation of a work by Ocellus Lukanus, a Pythagorean philosopher from the 2nd century BE.

Vincenzo Armanni (1608-1684), a renowned man of letters, and diplomat, whole spent the first half of his life in the employ of the church, being posted to the English court of Charles I, as well as stints in Brussels and Ghent. In the 1640s he returned to Rome, eventually, due to his worsening eye sight, returning to Gubbio, where he immersed himself in the towns history.

The Blaeu Cartographic Dynasty

Willem Blaeu was the founder of the Blaeu cartographic dynasty, the finest mapmakers of the Golden Age of Dutch cartography. He studied astronomy and instrument making under Tycho Brahe in his tower at Uranienborg in 1594, before moving to Amsterdam. He eventually established his own shop in 1605, close to his contemporaries and rivals Johannes Janssonius and Jacob Colom. He was granted a privilege to print a navigational guide in 1606. Two years later, he produced a set of large carte-à-figure wall maps of the four continents and published Het Licht der Zeevaerdt, a traditional oblong format pilot with coastal profiles to accompany the sailing instructions. The book was popular enough for Janssonius to publish a pirated version in 1620. Blaeu responded by issuing the Zeespiegel in 1623, an enlarged and improved version of his earlier work. The Zeespiegel also sold well, but Blaeu could not afford to rest on his laurels; Jacob Colom produced a cheap and accurate challenger, De Vyerighe Colom (1632). Blaeu's parting shot was the Havenwyser van de oostersche in 1634, an amalgamation of his previous work, but it was prone to the same errors it singled out in its competitors.

Blaeu also battled with rivals in his globe making business, in particular the firm of Jodocus Hondius. He designed a completely original globe in 1599 (as opposed to simply compiling the works of others), in an attempt to outshine Hondius's terrestrial globe published two years before. In his subsequent production of globes he would take care to update the astronomical information, recalculating the positions of the constellations for the new epoch in order to completely revise his celestial gores, drawing on the astronomy he learnt under Brahe. His greatest feat, however, was to publish a pair of 26-inch globes in 1616, beating Hondius's largest globes by six inches. He also made giant metal globes for Prince Crain Patenglo of Makasar and Christina of Sweden.

Willem's sons joined him in the firm, with the eldest Joan (1596–1673) quickly assuming the lead. Joan went to university in Leiden, studying mathematics and astronomy. After returning to work for his father, they produced their first atlas together in 1630, the Atlas Appendix. The title was deliberately chosen to position is as a supplement to the well-respected atlases of Abraham Ortelius and Gerard Mercator, and it mostly contained maps from their stock of plates. Five years later, they produced their Atlas Novus with more than twice the number of maps in the Appendix, which was published in four languages. After Willem died, Joan expanded the Atlas Novus into the Atlas Maior, the largest and grandest atlas of its time. Any issue had between nine and twelve volumes, beautifully engraved and coloured, and cost as much as a house in Amsterdam. Also he produced sumptuous town books of The Netherlands, and parts of Italy, together with wall maps and globes.