Imperium Turcicum in Europa, Asia et Africa regiones proprias tributarias clientelares sicut et omnes ejusdem Beglirbegatus seu Praefecturas Generales exhibens

Key Properties

Publisher: Homann, Nuremberg, after Guillaume de l'Isle and Johann Matthias Hase

Technique: Copper engraving, hand-coloured in outline and in part in wash

Plate number: 37 in the upper right corner

Region: the Ottoman Empire: the Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, Arabia, with Persia and the Caspian

Condition

Hand-coloured. Trimmed close to the border at the sides and the foot, as is the upper headline. Verso: the centrefold backed with a strip of paper; some spotting, light damp marks and small marginal tears and creases; light browning.

References & Bibliography

Sandler, Johann Baptista Homann, die Homännischen Erben, Matthäus Seutter und ihre Landkarten (1886-1890).

Tooley's Dictionary of Mapmakers, s.v. Hase, Johann Matthias.

Description

A large map of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its extent, coloured by province. It reaches from Italy and the Balkans in the west to Samarkand and the Persian Gulf in the east, and from Poland and the Crimea in the north to Nubia, Abyssinia and the Arabian Sea in the south. Each Ottoman beylerbeylik, from Bosnia, Bulgaria and Rumelia to Anatolia, Syria, Baghdad and Egypt, is distinguished in colour, with the tributary lands and the bordering states of Persia, Georgia and the Tatars. The Black Sea, the Caspian and the Red Sea are shown with their coasts and the caravan towns of Arabia, among them Mecca and Medina, are named.

The headline states that the map was drawn after the latest reports and according to De l'Isle, but above all after the celebrated geographer Johann Matthias Hase, professor at Wittenberg. The large title cartouche in the lower left is decorated with figures of Turks.

Historical Significance

Johann Matthias Hase (1684 to 1742), professor of mathematics at Wittenberg, drew many of the maps of Asia and Africa for the Homann firm in the 1730s and 1740s; this is one of the standard eighteenth-century maps of the Ottoman Empire.