MIRANDOLA. [Mirandola]

Some examples are found, in fact, in the work Le vere imagini et descritioni delle più nobili città del mondo, published in Venice by Donato in 1569, in rivalry with the analogous urban collections by Forlani-Zenoi (1567) and Ferrando Bertelli (1568).

The print is also known through examples preserved in composite works in a larger number of plates.

The Bertelli family represents the largest group of publishers, engravers, cartographers and merchants of prints of the sixteenth century. Ferrando Bertelli was the most productive publisher active between 1570, and 1560th, but maps of the last quarter of the century are known by the names of Andrea, Donato, Lucca, Nicholas and Peter.
He was mainly active in Padua, where he led a workshop in letterpress and engravings.

The earliest records show stock at the date of 1589 as an engraver of several plates for an edition entitled "Diversarum nationum habitus" which was published in collaboration with Alciato Alciati. Pietro Bertelli had a library in Padua "the banner of the Angel".
At his death, the business was inherited by his son Francis. Donato Bertelli was a printer, publisher and print dealer, and was probably born in Padua, ("Donatus Bertellius Patavinus") and active in Venice between 1563 and 1574, although he tends to expand his activities from 1558 to 1592 on the basis of cartographic material marketed by him in those years. He worked in the workshop of Ferdinando Bertelli - with which it is not yet clear to the family relationship - from whom he inherited the branches etching, substituting his own name.

In view of the large number of maps he, his principal heir and successor published they were one of the most active producers in the second half of the sixteenth century in Venice.

Bibliography: Valerio, Cartographers Veneti, p. 149.

Collector's item. A unique opportunity to acquire a fine example from a town view from the early Lafreri school.!