The full title of the book indicates that this book is not only a travel guide for people who would like to visit Italy, it should be read as travel literature because the book also described the country’s morals and customs, spiritual and political and buildings that are worth seeing.
The book have 3 list of contents. The first contains a part of the Italian cities in alphabetical order. The second one shows the distance given in miles and the time people needs to travel from one place the an other. The last one is a catalog of pictures in this book.
Most of the illustrations in this book are engravings of Italian cities and architectures including its exterior, a part of them even with its ground plan. There are also some illustrations about some large equipment.
The book is about 40 mm thick and has a format of 159x198mm. This makes it easy to carry and read while traveling.
The author is Joseph Furttenbach from Germany. For writing this book, he was living in Italy for 12 years, doing an apprenticeship as merchant. During these years, he travelled to various places during his stays in Milan, Genoa and Florence. Beside that he also studied engineering and architecture and built a successful career as an architect after he returns to Germany. By filling the book with the details of the churches, palaces and theatres Furttenbach promotes himself as a cultural mediator between Italy and Germany.