A finely engraved map of Mantua in Italy by Matthaus Merian. From Martin Zeiler’s ‘Itinerarium Italiae Nov Antiquae’ published in Frankfurt, 1640. Matthaus Merian (1593-1650) was a prolific engraver, he began publishing the ‘Theatrum Europaeum’ in 1633, it was not finished until 1738 by which time 21 volumes had been issued including some 20,000 pages of text, 720 maps, plans, views and other engravings and nearly 700 portraits. Phillips (1909-) 5259.