This marvelous atlas of the world on the brink of conflagration was published in 1914 by the Istituto Geografico de Agostini in Novara. Giovanni de Agostini, an important Italian geographer and cartographer, founded his institute in Rome in 1901 and quickly grew into a major publisher of educational materials. This work, the ‘Methodical Geographical Atlas’, was hugely popular and is still published today. According to the front endpaper, this example of the atlas was captured by Captain M.W. Links in November of 1943, about a month after Italy joined the Allies. At the time, there was intense fighting against the heavily fortified German Winter Line. Rubberstamps also present on the volume indicates that Links was later promoted to Senior Captain in the Corps of Military Police (C.M.P.).
