A small topographical map of Turin from Luigi Zucoli’s famous work “Nuovissima guida dei viaggiatori in Italia”, published in Milan in 1844; a work intended for cultured travelers who journeyed across the Italian Peninsula along the routes of the nineteenth-century Grand Tour.
The etching, signed “Leone Zucoli inc.” at the bottom right, depicts the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia in the first half of the nineteenth century with geometric precision, during a period of intense urban transformation that preceded the great upheavals of the Risorgimento by just a few years.
The plate is accompanied by a legend divided into three distinct columns: the squares are marked with letters (a–m), the “Notable Places” are numbered from 1 to 11, and the main churches are numbered from 12 to 22.
Luigi Zucoli was one of the most prolific compilers of travel guides in Italy during the Restoration and the early Risorgimento. Working primarily within the Milanese publishing industry, he was part of that fertile literary tradition which, in the wake of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour, addressed an increasingly broad audience of domestic and foreign travelers throughout the nineteenth century. His major work, the “Nuovissima guida dei viaggiatori in Italia,” stands out for its encyclopedic scope and the detailed cartographic material that accompanies it.
