Lafreri, Antonio (sold)

Antonio Lafreri (1512–1577), born Antoine du Pérac Lafréry, was a Burgundian engraver, cartographer and publisher active in Rome in the 16th century. Apart from his birth in Orgelet in Burgundy, nothing is known about his early life, education or training. He is thought to have arrived in Rome by 1540 and was established as an engraver and printmaker in 1544. He became a business partner with Antonio Salamanca the Elder in 1553, until his partner's death in 1562. He would continue in the trade as a successful publisher of maps in the 1560s, and by 1570 he was selling made-to-order atlases both of his own maps and those of his collaborators. By the time of his death he was the leading dealer of engravings in Rome. His work was instrumental in disseminating the geographical ideas of Giacomo Gastaldi, but his battle scenes and maps focusing on the wars between Venice and the Ottoman Empire (particularly the famous Siege of Malta) are particularly prized. He is also noted for his Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, a three volume collection of engravings of Rome produced over the course of the latter part of Lafreri's career, from 1545 to 1577. Other mapmakers in Rome and Venice sharing both Lafreri's aesthetic and geographical sources such as other Battista Agnese, Antonio Salamanca, Francesco Camocio the Younger, Donato Bertelli, Ferando Bertelli and Paolo Forlani are collectively generally referred to as belonging to the 'Lafreri' school of mapmakers, although this was not a formal organization. The terms 'Lafreri Atlases' and 'IATO (Italian, Assembled To Order) Atlases' are used to refer to the same class of works. He died at Rome in 1577.