Copperplate engraving, mm 485x665, period coloring on borders. Perfectly preserved specimen. Large map of the ancient world as known to ancient European civilizations, based on an earlier map published by J.B.B. D'Anville in Paris. The map shows a modern outline of the regions of Europe known at the time of Ptolemy, using ancient place names and omitting regions that had not yet been “discovered” by Europeans. edited by Paolo and Francesco Santini for their prestigious Atlas universel dressée sur les meilleures cartes modernes, a sumptuous atlas composed of maps reworking the most up-to-date French cartography in a Venetian guise. The maps are taken from the best geographers of his time, D'Anville, Bellin, Bonne, Borgonio, Boscovich, Clarici, Delisle, Jaillot, Janvier, Robert de Vaugondy. Santini's atlas did not have great publishing success and came out in few copies: it was therefore reprinted by the Remondini, who had purchased the copperplates from Santini in 1781. To Paolo Santini's maps, dated between 1774 and 1780, the Remondini added several other maps, dated between 1782 and 1784: among them, in the second volume, the large folded maps of Italy, the Republic of Genoa, Palestine, and the large maps of Africa. Paolo Santini (1729, Venice - 1793, Belluno), a Catholic priest at the Church of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice, teacher of drawing at schools in the lagoon city of the Venetian Province of the Society of Jesus.