Beschreibung:

CARLETTI, Niccolo and Giuseppe ALOJA. Mappa Topografica della città di Napoli e di suoi contorni. Naples: 1775. Engraved wall-map of the city of Naples on 35 sheets, by Aloja and others after Carletti, (overall size 250 x 450cm, sheet size 52 x 72cm). The plan incorporating a wide decorative border titled along the upper section, with large elaborate cartouche decorations, to the left the dedication to Charles III of Spain displayed on a flayed bull's hide supported by Mercury, a putto and a trumpeting angel, and to the right an area of the map apparently peeled back by putti to reveal a tree, from which hang the shields of the noble families of the area topped by the royal arms of Spain, lower centre, with a large decorative cartouche with scale-bar, and at foot an inset panoramic view of the city above an explanatory text flanked by elements from Roman antiquity. (About 12 sheets with small tears to margins, sheet number 15 with repaired tear just affecting image, occasional old light dampstaining, more obtrusive on sheet 32.) Unbound in a modern cloth portfolio. The most importnant 18th-century plan of Naples. This magnificent wall map on 35 sheets took over 25 years to complete. The project began in 1750, under the overall direction of Giovanni Carafa, Duca di Noja. The engraving was started by Aloja, Campana and Lamarra (?Francesco La Marra), but the whole project was halted by Carafa's death. In 1769 the project was resumed, this time under the control of Giovanni Pignatelli, Principe di Monteroduni. Carletti made many corrections, as well as compiling the extensive topographical and historical index. The final version was published in 1775, apparently entirely engraved by Aloja (there is no acknowledgment of Campana and Lamarra as engravers, other than in the explanatory note). Giulio Pane and Vladimiro Valerio (editors), La citta di Napoli ... piante e vedute dal XV al XIX secolo (Napels, 1987), pp. 269-306.