Parma

Description

Rare Lafreri bird’s-eye-view of Parma, engraved by Paolo Forlani and first published in Il Primo Libro Delle Citta, Et Fortezze Principali Del Mondo. This example is from Giulio Ballino’s De’ Disegni Delle Piu Illustri Citta…, published by Zaltieri.

The view is oriented to the east and is filled with many charming details, including knights on horseback, canons firing, and soldiers in march.

This engraving is dated 1567 and has Italian text and the page number 19 on the verso.

The so-called “Lafreri” school of mapmakers constitutes a loose group of engravers and printers working in Venice and Rome in the middle of the sixteenth century who often bound together collections of maps and prints to form atlases.