Antique Prints

Visit our web site: www.pettinarolimapsandprints.com

This sector of our activity can be summed up in two words which are absolutely inseparable: tradition and passion.

The fact is that we have always dealt in antique prints because we liked them ourselves. My grandparents and uncles were all passionate collectors, although without any precise specialisation.

I have inherited this passion in an almost fanatical form, creating within the shop two precisely specialised sectors: geographical maps and views of Milan. When you have a sixteenth-century map in your hands, you can't help but pause and wonder at the meticulous precision with which certain surveys were done five hundred years ago; the colours, the decorative scrolls, the papers used, everything has an innate charm and fascination.

Effectively the cult for antique maps is a phenomenon which has become increasingly widespread in the last 15 years, and there are now numerous enthusiasts in this field.

certain "pieces" is vastly superior to that of their subsequent sale.

The same holds for the views of Milan.

Here we are dealing with a veritable study, since from the prints we can determine the urban development of the city in the course of the centuries: we discover buildings, sights, customs and scenes of an everyday life which no longer exists, which we have only read about, and that we can come to appreciate and understand through these views.