Geografia. Tavole moderne di geografia de la maggior parte del Mondo di diversi autori raccolte et messe secondo l’ordine di Tolomeo con indisegni di molte citta et fortesse di diverse provintie stampate in rame con studio et diligenza in Roma. - Facsimile by LAFRERI ANTONIO

Antonio Lafreri, a Frenchman from Burgundy (born Antoine du Pérac Lefréry of Besançon), settled in Rome in 1540, Italianized his name, and in 1544 set up business as an engraver and printseller in the Via del Perione. From 1553 onwards, Lafreri was associated in business with an established dealer, the elder Salamanca (Antonio). In 1562 Salamanca died, and a year later, the connection between the younger Salamanca (Francesco) and Lafreri was dissolved. From that date until his death in 1577, Lafreri published on his own account, and became the leading dealer in engravings in Rome.

Lafreri was primarily a dealer and publisher, rather than an artisan in his own right. He carried in stock the prints made not only by his own establishment, but by others, and his own name appears comparatively seldom in the atlases attributed to him. Claudio Duchetti, Lafreri's nephew, was part heir and successor to Lafreri's business.

The title-page, with the added signature of Pietro de Nobili as publisher, is of special importance since few of the Lafreri-school atlases were issued with title-pages, and no other copy carries this second and final state of the title, with Nobili's name.

From the beginning these maps were sold separately, but the idea of assembling collections to the particular desires of a customer and the binding of the whole together in atlas form was developed no later than 1568. No two of these atlases are alike, either in number of maps nor in their content, be they Roman or Venetian.