Il Ducato d’Ausfa, il Canavese, et il Marchesato di Susa… / La Signoria di Vercelli, e la Parte Settentrionale del Monferrato…

Description

This striking pair of engraved maps by Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola, among the foremost Italian cartographers of the late 17th century, depicts northwestern Piedmont and the western Alps, including the Duchy of Aosta, the Marquisate of Susa, the Canavese, Vercelli, Biella, and the northern Monferrato. Both plates were published by Giovanni Giacomo Rossi in Rome for Cantelli’s monumental Mercurio Geografico (1678–1696), one of the defining achievements of Baroque Italian cartography.

The left sheet, Il Ducato d’Ausfa…, extends from the Mont Blanc range and the Valle d’Aosta eastward to Susa, capturing the formidable Alpine barrier that defined the frontier between Savoy and France. The right sheet, La Signoria di Vercelli…, continues eastward to Lago Maggiore, encompassing the fertile plain of the Po River and the Monferrato hills. Together they form a continuous panorama of the northwestern Italian borderlands, rendered with dramatic hachured mountains and detailed topography — a hallmark of Cantelli’s work and a visual triumph of early modern engraving.

The maps reflect both strategic and dynastic geography, portraying territories under the rule or contest of the Houses of Savoy, Mantua, and Milan, regions that would later become pivotal in the wars for control of northern Italy. Each map bears an elegant cartouche framed by allegorical figures and titles declaring Cantelli’s position as Geografo del Serenissimo Duca di Modena, a sign of his courtly prestige.

Cantelli’s engravings combined scientific precision with theatrical composition, bridging the Renaissance and Enlightenment approaches to mapmaking. His maps were among the most influential of their era, directly inspiring the later atlases of Vincenzo Coronelli and Matteo Greuter, and establishing a distinctly Italian aesthetic in European cartography.