Giovanni Maria Cassini (1745 – 1824) was an Italian globe maker, geographer, engraver and cartographer and was considered one of ‘the last great Italian geographers of the eighteenth century’.
Cassini worked extensively in Rome with the famous Giovanni Battista Piranesi.  He was prolific and much sought after; so much so; that the Calcografia Camerale or the Chamber Chalcography commissioned Cassini to replace the Geographical Mercury with a more updated version. He created his famous atlas Nuovo Atlante Geografico Universale…or New Universal Geographical Atlas outlined on the latest observations publishing it in Rome from 1792 until 1801.
The Calcografia Camerale was the printer and publisher of prints from a stock of mostly old plates, to which some new ones have been added. The name changed over the years. Calcografia della Camera Apostolica, or Calcografia Camerale was founded by Pope Benedict XIV in 1738, when the Vatican acquired the stock of the Rossi family. Other copperplates were slowly added to the collection.
In 1870 it became Regia Calcografia and in 1945 the name changed again to Calcografia Nazionale and in 1975 it became are of the Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica. It is also sometimes known by the name Calcografia Romana
