The maps from The Illustrated Atlas were first published in serial form to a target audience that led insular lives due to the expense and hardship of travel. All that changed as the progress of the nineteenth century brought swift and dramatic changes in public awareness of far away places. Tallis' maps no doubt played an important role in this dramatic awakening. These maps not only provided up-to-date geographical knowledge, but also used vignette views within the map's design to show the native people and their occupations, cities and points of interest. The maps hark back to a cartographic tradition from the Dutch mapmakers of the seventeenth century with finely engraved decorative borders. The maps were drawn and engraved by John Rapkin with views drawn and engraved by a number of prominent artists. The maps were issued as a complete volume from 1851 until about 1865. Some of the maps were also published in other history books published by Tallis including British Colonies and, without the vignettes, in geographical dictionaries and encyclopedias until about 1880.

Both maps are finely engraved and surrounded by well rendered steel engraved vignettes and very lovely borders. The first map extends south to below Rome to the Gulf of Gaeta and shows Corsica. Includes vignettes of St. Peter's in Rome, St. Mark's in Venice, an elaborate Catholic procession, and two figures. The latter extends south from the Papal States and includes Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. With vignettes showing Benevento, Naples and Vesuvius, the Carnival, and the Festival of the Vintage. Vignettes and borders uncolored, as issued.

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Condition: A

Original outline color with minor soiling confined to the lower blank margin.