“Pianta ed alzato della città di Ferrara” offers a rare, double-voiced portrait of the city in 1782: a meticulous ground plan paired with a sweeping elevation that makes Ferrara both legible and luminous. Revised by Giambattista Galli from Andrea Bolzoni’s respected 1747 survey, it records a city balancing medieval inheritance with Enlightenment order. The plan’s precision, keyed by a detailed legend, captures streets, squares, and the full circuit of fortifications, while the prospect assembles the principal monuments into a coherent skyline. Few city maps so deftly reveal how Ferrara’s Renaissance ambitions—the celebrated Addizione Erculea—sit against its older core, thus making this an especially notable urban map for readers of planning history and architectural form.

The plan view isolates Ferrara’s urban grammar with striking clarity. The central grid radiating from the Renaissance expansion contrasts with the denser weave of lanes around the cathedral and market quarter. Major axes—Corso Ercole I d’Este drawing a regal northward line, Corso Porta Mare opening east, and Corso Porta Renata aiming toward the southern gate—anchor the city’s movement. Encircling bastions, moats, and walls form a strategic carapace, their angles and curtains crisply engraved. Squares punctuate the fabric as measured voids, balancing civic life with circulation. Read together, these components turn the map into a study in urban equilibrium, where ceremonial processions, commerce, and defense are each allotted their geometry.

The companion elevation translates cartographic data into architecture’s theater. Castello Estense rises with its unmistakable moats and towers; the Cathedral of San Giorgio steps forward in measured ranks; palatial fronts, notably along the Ercole axis, assert their rhythm; and the great monastic houses—San Benedetto, San Francesco—stand as spiritual anchors. The engraver’s Baroque sensibility shows in the ornamental cartouche and the calibrated play of light across façades, yet the selection and ordering of buildings remain rigorously informative. By aligning specific elevations to the ground plan’s numbering, the map creates a didactic instrument: one can traverse Ferrara in plan, then confirm each landmark by sight, an invaluable aid for scholars and connoisseurs alike.

Street by street, the city’s lived texture emerges. Via San Romano courses through the mercantile heart toward the cathedral’s piazza, while Via Garibaldi and Via Carlo Mayr braid civic and residential life. The network of devotional axes—Via San Francesco, Via San Benedetto, Via San Giovanni, Via San Lorenzo—reveals how parish boundaries organized daily rhythms. Along Via Giuseppe Mazzini, the historic Jewish quarter concentrates within the old core, its proximity to markets and workshops apparent. Westward, Via Montebello and Via Bersaglieri thread newer neighborhoods, as Via Argentini and Via Vittorio Veneto articulate secondary cross-currents. Each thoroughfare is fixed within the legend’s taxonomy, tying landmarks and squares into a navigable system that makes this a model city plan for close urban reading.

Water and green structure the map’s final, persuasive argument. The Po di Volano and subsidiary canals feed moats and mills, shaping both economy and defense, while the grassy glacis beyond the bastions promises air and promenade. Corso Ercole I d’Este reads as a grand, tree-lined processional linking courtly palaces to the northern edge, and the broad, oval piazza of the Renaissance quarter offers calibrated space for spectacle. Galli’s revision acknowledges changes since Bolzoni’s 1747 template, quietly registering new edifices, refined alignments, and the rationalization of public spaces. In sum, this is a city at poised transition—its fortressed silhouette intact, its streets increasingly ordered—captured in a map whose artistry serves the most exacting urban intelligence.

Streets and roads on this map

• Corso Ercole I d'Este
• Corso Porta Mare
• Corso Porta Renata
• Via Argentini
• Via Bersaglieri
• Via Carlo Mayr
• Via Garibaldi
• Via Giuseppe Mazzini
• Via Montebello
• Via San Romano
• Via San Gregorio
• Via San Benedetto
• Via San Francesco
• Via San Giovanni
• Via San Lorenzo
• Via Vittorio Veneto

Notable Features & Landmarks

• Central urban grid layout
• Elevation of significant buildings
• Fortifications and walls surrounding the city
• Decorative cartouche with engravings
• Key landmarks and squares
• Legend identifying various features
• Visual representations of key monuments

Historical and design context

• Date of creation: 1782
• Dual representation: detailed plan view alongside an elevation/prospect, reflecting streets, squares, fortifications, and key monuments; updated edition revising the 1747 original and documenting urban changes
• Mapmaker/publisher: [s.n.] (not specified), revised by Giambattista Galli
• Original cartographer: Andrea Bolzoni; Galli’s revision underscores the period’s emphasis on accurate urban documentation
• Themes shown: urban planning, architecture, and the development of public spaces, with emphasis on fortifications and major landmarks
• Design/style: detailed street layouts, notation of significant buildings, illustrative elevation; Baroque influences with ornate decorative elements
• Geographic focus: the city of Ferrara, Italy
• Historical significance: insight into Ferrara’s urban development and fortifications during a transformative period in Italy; valuable for historical and architectural studies

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 100in (250cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

Please note: the labels on this map are hard to read if you order a map that is 36in (90cm) or smaller. The map is still very attractive, but if you would like to read the map easily, please buy a larger size.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x16in (40x40cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.