Map of Australia and Southeast Asia taken from the rare “Atlante di geografia moderna ad uso dei ginnasi del Regno Lombardo Veneto”, edited by the geographer and astronomer Giovanni Marieni and published in Milan in 1833 by the Imperial Royal Printing Office.
The macro-continent does not yet bear the unique and universal name of “Australia” within its interior (although it is used in the title and in the cartouche at the bottom right), but rather reflects the centuries-old stratification of European maritime discoveries:
New Holland: The central-western portion of the continent is designated by the famous name given by the navigators of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the 17th century. A significant note in italics explicitly states “so named since 1644,” in memory of Abel Tasman’s seminal voyage.
New South Wales: The entire eastern region, explored and claimed by James Cook in 1770, retains the historical name linked to the first British colonization, extending well beyond the current borders of the federal state of the same name.
Van Diemen’s Land: The present-day island of Tasmania is designated by its original name, Van Diemen’s Land, accompanied by the historical dates of the voyages (1642–1798), before it was renamed in honor of Tasman himself in the mid-19th century.
Names of the Explored Coasts: The continental perimeter appears as a mosaic of historical dedications and discoveries, among which “Nuyts Land,” “Flinders Land,” “Baudin Coast,” and “Witt Land” stand out. These designations bear witness to the fierce scientific and naval competition between the French and British at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Great Unexplored Areas:
The vast Australian outback appears completely blank, devoid of waterways, mountain ranges, or settlements. Mountain ranges and geographical features are outlined exclusively along the narrow coastal strips, where navigators were able to conduct precise astronomical and geodetic surveys from the decks of their ships.
This vast central void reflects the actual state of exploration in 1833: the great and dramatic expeditions into the continent’s interior—such as those of Sturt, Leichhardt, Eyre, and later Burke and Wills—had yet to take place or were just beginning along the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. For Marieni’s contemporaries, the Australian interior remained one of the last and most fascinating “terrae incognitae” on the planet.
The map is not limited to the Australian continent, but provides an overview of the vast Indo-Pacific region, which is essential for understanding the maritime routes of the time.
Southeast Asia: The western and northwestern sections of the map clearly depict a significant portion of Southeast Asia and the Indonesian archipelago. The large islands of Borneo, Celebes, the Malay Peninsula, and the southern tip of the Philippine Islands are clearly recognizable, as is the vast and complex mass of New Guinea (also indicated by its indigenous name, Papua, and bordered by the Harafora Sea).
The Pacific Ocean and Its Islands: To the east, the map unfolds into the vastness of the Pacific, divided according to the nomenclature of the time into Northern Polynesia and Southern Polynesia. The dense network of islands and archipelagos attests to the incredible level of detail achieved in maritime hydrography: one can clearly make out the Sandwich Islands (today’s Hawaii), the Caroline Islands or New Philippines, the Mendaña Archipelago (Marquesas Islands), the Friends Islands (Tonga), the Society Islands, and New Zealand, accurately outlined in its two main islands.
A Cartographic Curiosity: The Inclusion of America
A detail typical of hemispheric and equatorial projections of large oceanic areas can be seen in the upper right corner of the map. In this outer region, close to the graduated margin, there appears a small but unmistakable stretch of coastline associated with the American continent, explicitly marked with the word “AMERICA.”
Far from being an error, this cartographic feature allowed students in Lombard-Venetian secondary schools to grasp the continuity of the oceanic expanse and the actual planetary proximity between the eastern reaches of Polynesia (the area of Hawaii and the eastern Pacific) and the western coasts of the New World, offering a rigorous, spherical overview free of arbitrary interruptions.
The history of the Imperiale Regia Stamperia di Milano is closely linked to the Austrian presence in Lombardy. Founded in 1761 by order of Maria Theresa of Austria, the Imperiale Regia Stamperia di Milano represented the state’s typographic excellence for nearly a century. During the Habsburg period, the printing house served as the official body responsible for publishing laws, edicts, and school textbooks approved by the Austrian government. Thanks to its collaboration with technicians, engravers, and geographers affiliated with imperial scientific institutions, the printing house contributed to the dissemination of publications of high typographical and scientific quality. With the Five Days of Milan and the subsequent Risorgimento uprisings, the printing house lost its “imperial” character, gradually transforming into Stamperia Reale after the unification of Italy.
