3 parts in one volume in 12°(mm 150x73); 6 folios no. 20; folios no. 165; folios no. 115; folios no. 83. Small embellishments, endpapers and ornate initials, all in silography. A total of 20 finely engraved copperplates folded out of text, including 1 map of Italy. Editorial paperback, manuscript title on spine. Rare and beautiful edition of one of the best-known geographical-historical-artistic descriptions of the peninsula, originally published in Latin in 1600 by Franz Schott, Andrea's elder brother, and then translated into Italian in 1615. The work was enormously successful and was published with different iconographic decorations by various publishers over the centuries. The first part 'Descrizione dell'Italia in generale' covers mainly northern but also Tuscany and central Italy with relevant plates; the second part is the 'Descrittione di Roma'; the third part is 'Viaggio da Roma à Napoli e Sicilia'. The perspective views in the work depict Trento, Treviso, Venice, Padua, Verona, Brescia, Milan, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Siena, Mantua, Ferrara, Ancona, Lucca, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Pozzuoli. Fascinating example in its primitive cardboard binding with minimal traces of time; small restorations to the inner margin of the frontispiece. Fine example in mint condition, ownership notes to the title page, old small restorations to the binding, likely sewn up and first quire refreshed. Missing in Cremonini; Fossati Bellani, 312; Cat. Piantanida,1367: 'Interesting guide, widespread in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work was later written by Francesco Scotti, senator of Antwerp, and not by Andrea his brother. The first edition of this translation is from Venice, 1610.