1735 Homann Heirs / Lodovico Ughi City Plan or Map of Venice, Italy

Early reduction of Ughi's Groundbreaking Plan.

This is a 1735 Homann Heirs city map or plan of Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest derivatives of Lodovico Ughi's rare, foundational, and huge 1729 Iconografica Rappresentatione Della Inclita Città di Venezia Consacrata al Reggio Serenissimo Dominio Veneto, the first plan of Venice to be produced from accurate field surveys.

A Closer Look

The plan - one of the earliest to abandon the faux-bird's eye view model - nevertheless provides a granular picture of the city. It reveals the complex canals, squares, palaces, churches, and alleyways of the city. The waterways surrounding the city are decorated with ships and sailboats. A table of 96 locations is keyed by number to the plan itself.

At the bottom of the plate is an attractively engraved panorama of the city as viewed from the south, centered on St. Mark's Plaza.

A New Measure of Venice

The lack of biographical information for Lodovico Ughi baffles, for his work brought the mapping of Venice to a new level: it was the first to be produced with accurate field surveys, dispensing with depictions which had been dominated by iterations of bird's-eye-view representations of the city. While attractive, these did not satisfy modern demands for accuracy. The present work is among the earliest plans to be produced based on Ughi's model, which would remain the basis of all later topographical representations of the city until 1797.

Publication History and Census

We are aware of two states of this map: the first was printed as early as 1735 (Moretto gives 1762) and corresponds to the present example. Moretto records a second state with the last line of the cartouche erased, and the date '1789' added. Examples of the map appear in the Homann Heirs composite atlases. The plan is well-represented in institutional collections.

Cartographers

Homann Heirs (1730 - 1848) were a map publishing house based in Nuremberg, Germany, in the middle to late 18th century. After the great mapmaker Johann Baptist Homann's (1664 - 1724) death, management of the firm passed to his son Johann Christoph Homann (1703 - 1730). J. C. Homann, perhaps realizing that he would not long survive his father, stipulated in his will that the company would be inherited by his two head managers, Johann Georg Ebersberger (1695 - 1760) and Johann Michael Franz (1700 - 1761), and that it would publish only under the name 'Homann Heirs'. This designation, in various forms (Homannsche Heirs, Heritiers de Homann, Lat Homannianos Herod, Homannschen Erben, etc..) appears on maps from about 1731 onwards. The firm continued to publish maps in ever diminishing quantities until the death of its last owner, Christoph Franz Fembo (1781 - 1848).   Further Details...

Lodovico Ughi (fl. c. 1700 - 1729) was an Italian mapmaker active in the first part of the 18th century. His origins and life details are obscure. He is remembered solely for his monumental, groundbreaking 1729 plan of Venice: this mammoth plan was one of the largest of Venice ever produced, and was the first such plan to be based on modern survey.   Further Details...

Source

Homann Heirs, Stadt Atlas, (Nuremberg: Homann Erben) 1735.    

Condition

Very good. Creasing at centerfold; marginal soiling. Original outline and wash color.

References

OCLC 165847567. Moretto, G., Venetia Le Immagini Della Repubblica: Piante e Vedute Prospettiche della citta dal 1479 al 1797, #175, state 1.