Nuova carta geografica dello stato ecclesiastico from 1755: the result of scientific expedition undertaken by Ruđer Bošković and Christopher Maire

The two-year-long scientific expedition (1750 - 1752) of Ruđer Bošković and Christopher Maire had two objectives: to measure the length of one degree of longitude on the meridian of Rome and to "correct" the map of the Papal State. Bošković and Maire publiched a report on the expedition in a weighty volumen entitled "De letteraria expeditione per Pontificiam ditionem (About the scientific expedition around the Papal State), 1775, to which they appended an exact map of the Papal State, Nuova carta geografica dello Stato Ecclesiastico.

This map is the most valuable object in the Boscovichiana Collection of the distinguished scientist Ivica Martinović. Deriving from an atlas of an Argetinean collector, it was bought from a London antiques dealet in spring 2012, and is here exhibited in public for the first time. The exhibit is an original production of the papal printing works, it is a "rarissima" even in world terms an is the only one of its kind in the Republic of Croatia.