Map of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia taken from Giovanni Marieni’s rare work *Atlas of Modern Geography*, published in Milan in 1833 by the Imperial Royal Printing Office.
The map outlines the borders of Lombardy-Venetia, highlighting the complex Alpine terrain and the dense network of waterways in the Po Valley. In the lower left corner, a legend lists the administrative division of the territory into two regions separated by the Mincio River:
Lombardy (Nine Provinces) with Milan (capital and nerve center), Pavia, Lodi and Crema, Cremona, Mantua, Brescia, Bergamo, Como, Sondrio (Valtellina)
Venice (Eight Provinces): Venice, Udine (of Friuli), Belluno, Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Padua, Rovigo (of Polesine).
This administrative division reflects the institutional structure imposed by the Habsburg Empire after 1815, when the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia was established, through the Congress of Vienna, as a territory directly subject to the Austrian Crown. The map is therefore not merely a geographical tool but also a political document: through the orderly depiction of provinces, borders, and infrastructure, it makes tangible the desire for control and administrative rationalization pursued by Vienna in its Italian domains.
The history of the Imperial Royal Printing House of Milan is closely linked to the Austrian presence in Lombardy. Founded in 1761 by order of Maria Theresa of Austria, the Imperial Royal Printing House of Milan represented the state’s typographical 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 the Royal Printing House after the unification of Italy.
