de’ Capitani da Sesto, Giovanni Paolo. Manuscript collection of maps and views of Valtellina in Northern Italy. Milan: 22 September 1627.

de’ Capitani da Sesto, Giovanni Paolo. Manuscript collection of maps and views of Valtellina in Northern Italy. Milan: 22 September 1627.

A STRATEGIC MANUSCRIPT PREPARED FOR ARCHDUKE LEOPOLD V OF AUSTRIA

Quarto (12 1/4” x 9 9/16”, 312mm x 245mm): 13 leaves, pp. [vi] (arms of the dedicatee, blank, dedication, blank, blank, contents) [10] (map-view, blank for each). With 1 hand-colored manuscript folding map of Valtellina and 9 hand-colored manuscript composite map-views of cities and regions within Valtellina, heightened with gum arabic and gilt. Bound in contemporary red morocco with four pairs of red silk ties (perished). On the boards, elaborate gilt scrollwork with Atlantes surrounding a central oval, all within seven borders gilt. On the spine, nine gilt transverse rolls with gilt fleurons in the panels. All edges of the text-block gilt. Front board splayed. Ties perished. Worn at the corners, with losses to the head and tail. Some abrasions and stains generally. Ink manuscript to the upper edge of the front board (difficult to read, but apparently shelving and inventory-marks). Inventory number (911) to the upper edge of the recto of the front free end-paper. Soiling to the text-block generally, especially at the fore-edge. One map-view — 3 per the numbers on the views, C (Posto detto di Varcelli…) per the table of contents — lacking. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) saw great wrestling among the parts of the Holy Roman Empire struggling for control of Europe; the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648 was the beginning of its dissolution and the beginning of a recognizable map of Europe. In the early 1620’s, a major battleground was Valtellina (“the Valtelline” in English, Valtelina in Lombard, Veltlin in German) or Val Tellina (within modern Lombardy), stretching north and east from Lake Como, hard up against Switzerland. Sandwiched between the Duchy of Milan and the Venetian Republic, the region and its main thoroughfare, the Spanish Road, were crucial for any Alpine strategy, allowing the Spanish and Austrian halves of the Hapsburgs to communicate. By 1626, the Treaty of Monzón (signed 3 March in Aragon) had nominally ended the “Valtellina War.” The Hapsburgs were prevented from seizing the region, and all forts were ordered to be destroyed (as the dedication notes: li Forti et Posti della Valtellina degni di consideratione demoliti d’ordine dell’ 9 15 Illustrissmo Signor Don Gonzal de Cordova (the worthwhile forts and installations of Valtellina demolished by the order of the Illustrious Gentleman Don Gonzalo de Córdoba)), but the Spanish Road, which would later be so crucial in the swift delivery of Spanish Troops to central and northern Europe to avoid total Swedish domination in the 1630’s, was kept open and accessible. The Protestant Grisons were kept in power, but they were made to permit Catholicism; Cardinal Richelieu was instrumental in this complex détente. Why, then, should Giovanni Paolo de’ Capitani da Sesto, a Milanese military architect, have presented this strategic manuscript to Leopold V, Archduke of Further Austria (Vorderösterreich, the Hapsburg holdings west of Tyrol and Bavaria, stretching into modern Alsace) in September of 1627? Capitani da Sesto (along with his brother Geronimo, as he writes in the dedication; elsewhere he is called Gerolamo; he had another brother, also an architect, called Giovanni Ambrogio), was an architect involved with the Duomo (cathedral) of Milan in the 1620’s. His dedication to Archduke Leopold yields a little insight: he submits for his consideration the status quo ante bellum: a militarized Valtellina, in whose creation he — along with his brother Geronimo — had a substantial part. In other words, he presents to the Archduke a road-map (with the Spanish Road literally depicted in gold) to reconsolidating military control throughout the Valtellina. It is, doubtless, a job application of sorts; if the Archduke were to be tempted by this military strength in such a crucial region, he might then hire Capitani da Sesto to survey and even to rebuild these forts. The table of contents — in a single hand, consistent with the dedication, which we might presume to be Capitani da Sesto’s own — calls for 11 mapviews (A-L without J, which is not distinct from I as an initial in Italian). The initial folding map, depicting the whole of the Valtelline, is not included in this list. Two of the maps (E, Terra di Traona…; F, Morbegno fortificato…) seem to have been combined. Map C (Posto detto di Varcelli…) appears to have been removed. A key of various colors and symbols follows the contents. Purchased (Brunk, 8-9 November 2008, lot 447) from a collection of material that had been owned by Princess Anna Schwarzenberg (1897–1954), born a member of an Austrian princely family (with prominence throughout the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Palais Schwarzenbergs in Vienna and Prague) and later a prominent nurse and nursing advocate