Italie Gastronomique. Carte des Principales Spécialités Gastronomiques des Régions Italiennes.
- Title:
- Italie Gastronomique. Carte des Principales Spécialités Gastronomiques des Régions Italiennes.
- Alternate Title:
- Italie Gastronomique
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Zimelli, Umberto
- Other Creators:
- Ente Nazionale Industrie Turistiche (ENIT) & Treves Treccani Tumminelli, publishers
- Date:
- 1931
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2389.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2389_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1920 - 1939
- Subject:
- Pictorial
Advertising & Promotion
Between the Wars - Measurement:
- 64 x 45 (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This stunning art deco map was published by the Italian National Tourist Agency (ENIT) to promote the variety and pleasure of Italian food and drink. “The artist Umberto Zimelli was commissioned by ENIT . . . to . . . create a map with which foreigners could identify the best products available in the cheese or dessert industry, the best wines and preserved foods, and contemplate steaming bowls of pasta placed between bottles of wine and molds of cheese.” Capatti 2003, 30. The text on the map and the detailed explanation verso (ID #2389.02) are in French, in an effort to attract French-speaking tourists; ENIT also published versions in German and English. The entire sheet folds down to a brochure, 9-1/2 x 4-1/4, easily fit into a pocket or bag.
Seventeen major regions of Italy are identified by legend on the map, from Piedmont, Lombardy, the Veneto and Tuscany in the north to Sardinia in the Mediterranean and Calabria and Sicily in the south. The food and wine of each is described in great detail on the verso, and the highlights are named and illustrated on the map itself. Potentially empty areas of the map are filled with decorative pictorial elements, including the title cartouche, a wind rose, and two mermaids. At the top right is a musician, and above him a banner with the Latin phase, “In wine, joy; in bread, life.”
Zimelli was a Milanese illustrator and designer who worked in a variety of the decorative arts. Two year later, ENIT published a companion map, also by Zimelli, specifically describing "The Wines of Italy," ID #2459.
These Zimelli maps are strikingly similar in concept to a Hungarian art deco promotional map of food and drink published a few years later to attract German tourists. See ID #2336, Ungarn Ein Land Für Feinschmecker [Hungary a Land for Gourmets] (1935).
The collection includes a number of promotional maps related to the food and wine of France and other countries, beginning as early as 1809. Search > "Gastronomique."
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.