Unrecorded Early State -- Tunis Before The Siege

Rare early state of this important map of Tunis, illustrating the This state of the map was not described in Bifolco-Ronca, which listed the only previously known example of the map , which depicts the fortress during the Turkish siege.

In this example, probably a proof state, the military camps around the city are not drawn. The second state of the map, bears the imprint Petrus Paulus Palumbus Novarien curabat Romae anno D[o]m[ini] 1574. The map of the Palombi typography, is based on the model engraved by Agostino de Musi, as the author himself underlines in the text in the cartouche: “tratto da un disegno fatto al tempo che Jl Serenissimo Imporator Carlo V lo prese lan[n]o 1535 (taken from a drawing made at the time).

The map is extended further to the west, including also part of Algeria and the city of Algiers, well defined with its fortifications.

The map was first published in 1574 when the new events in Tunis, with the definitive Turkish conquest, aroused a renewed interest manifested also by the vast production of maps and plants. The work was previously known only through the example preserved at Stanford University, which bears the signature of Gaspare Alberti, successor of Pietro Palombi (cf. Bifolco-Ronca, tav. 155).