Narsinga et Ceylon (Narzinga ende Decan, South India and Ceylon)

Key Properties

Edition: First edition, Dutch text, 1598

Map: 'Narsinga et Ceylon', title in a cartouche upper right; a scale of Spanish miles and the signature 'Petrus Kerius caelavit' upper left

Position: p. 79 (signature 2E8), headed 'Narzinga ende Decan'

Text: verso p. 80, the Beschryvinghe van Narzinga ende Decan

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. 79 (2E8), headed 'Narzinga ende Decan', and on the verso, p. 80, the Dutch description of Narsinga and the Deccan. The map, engraved by Pieter van den Keere, shows the south of the Indian subcontinent with its coastline, principal towns and terrain, Ceylon and a selection of Indian Ocean islands, the cartouche 'Narsinga et Ceylon' upper right and a small cartouche with a scale in Spanish miles upper left.

Condition

Slight damage to the margin at the upper right and lower right. Slight discolouration at the lower left.

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

Pieter van den Keere's map of South India from the first edition of Barent Langenes's Caert-Thresoor, the first Dutch pocket atlas, Middelburg 1598, with the Dutch description on the verso.

Narsinga is the European name of the Hindu empire of Vijayanagara. The map runs from Goa down the Malabar coast past Calicut and Cochin to Cape Comorin and up the Coromandel coast to Negapatam and Maliapor, 'where St Thomas is said to be buried', with Ceylon and the Maldives beside it. The text on p. 80 describes the riches of the kingdom, its two royal cities and the great army of the king of Bisnagar.

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

These were the coasts of the Portuguese pepper and textile trade; within a few years of the Caert-Thresoor the Dutch East India Company would set up its first factories on the Coromandel coast.

Provenance

Available on request.