Galliae Narbonensis Descriptio (Provence, Provence and Lower Languedoc)

Key Properties

Edition: First edition, Dutch text, 1598

Map: 'Galliae Narbonensis descriptio', title in a cartouche upper left, with a scale lower right; south at the top

Position: p. 109 (signature G7), headed 'Provence'

Text: verso p. 110, the beginning of the Beschryvinghe van Provence

Format: Copperplate engraving on a leaf of the oblong octavo atlas

Colouring: Uncoloured

Collation & Technical Description

One leaf from the Caert-Thresoor: the map on p. 109 (G7), headed 'Provence', and on the verso, p. 110, the opening of the Dutch description of Provence. The map shows the coastline, principal towns and terrain, the cartouche 'Galliae Narbonensis descriptio' upper left and a scale lower right.

Condition

Good. Margins barely damaged; only minor discolouration.

References & Bibliography

Van der Krogt, Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici, III, 341:01 (the atlas). Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, II, p. 254, Lan 1. Schilder, Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica, VII, 16.1. Burger, Het Caert-Thresoor (1930). King, Miniature Antique Maps (1996).

Description

A small map of Provence and the coast of Languedoc from the first edition of Barent Langenes's Caert-Thresoor, the first Dutch pocket atlas, Middelburg 1598, with the opening of the Dutch description on the verso.

The map is drawn with south at the top, the Mare Gallicum filling the upper half with a ship and two sea monsters, and the coast running from Marseille past Arles and Montpellier to Narbonne. The text on p. 110 derives the name from the Roman Provincia and tells of Marseille, founded by Greeks from Phocaea, a school of Greek learning in Gaul.

The Caert-Thresoor was the first Dutch pocket atlas: small copperplate maps by Pieter van den Keere (Petrus Kaerius) and Jodocus Hondius, each with a description of the country in Dutch, in an oblong octavo meant to be cheaper and handier than the great folio atlases of Ortelius and Mercator. It appeared in 1598, a year after the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies had returned, and it brought the geography of the whole known world within reach of a wider public. The plates proved durable: Petrus Bertius reused them for the Latin Tabularum geographicarum contractarum from 1600 and a French edition followed in 1602, so that the Dutch text of 1598 is the first and earliest form in which these maps were issued.

Historical Significance

The plate takes its title from Gallia Narbonensis, the Roman province, and shows how the Caert-Thresoor combined classical geography with the modern map of France.

Provenance

Available on request.

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Langenes's France, 1598: Fourteen Provinces from the First Dutch Pocket Atlas