Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance: Makers, Distributors and Consumers

Maps as Prints in the Italian Renaissance: Makers, Distributors and Consumers. By DAVID WOODWARD. London: The British Library, 1995, 127 pp. 16.00 (pbk). ISBN 0 7123 4502 7

This work is the publication of three lectures in the Panizzi Lecture Series held annually by the British Library and named after the distinguished librarian and effective founder of the Library in the British Museum, Sir Antonio Panizzi (1797-1879).

The author is Dr David Woodward, Arthur H. Robinson Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin and distinguished world authority on map printing methods, especially Italian maps. He has also written The Maps and Prints of Paolo Forlani (Newberry Library, 1990); Catalogue of Watermarks in Italian Printed Maps c. 1540-1600 (Olschki, 1996) and edited Five Centuries of Map Printing (University of Chicago Press, 1975); Art and Cartography (University of Chicago Press, 1987). He is currently engaged in editing The History of Cartography, a monumental standard six-volume work, three volumes of which have been published. On this he collaborated with the late Dr Brian Harley.

The work in question is written in a way which suggests...