New in the collection: Blaeu's England, Ortelius for the pocket and the first news from Tibet
Over the past weeks more than thirty works have joined the collection. They range from one of the great monuments of Dutch cartography to small pocket atlases, from Jesuit reports out of Tibet to sea charts of the Mediterranean, and from the science of measuring the earth to the history of the Holy Land.
Blaeu's England
The most important new arrival is the England volume of Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior, Amsterdam 1662, the largest and most costly book published in the seventeenth century. Our copy is complete, with both title-pages and 58 maps of the English and Welsh counties in full contemporary colour, still in the original gilt vellum of the Blaeu firm. It has a further point of interest for the bibliographer: the text is in the setting of 1648, the sheets Blaeu still had in stock when he launched the Atlas Maior, as recorded by Van der Krogt.
Atlases for the pocket and the wall
Ortelius's Theatrum of 1570 was the first atlas, and its success soon called for a smaller, cheaper version. The Latin Epitome of 1595, with 109 maps and an early seventeenth-century gilt morocco binding, joins our first French Epitome of 1588 and the Spanish Theatro of 1641. From the eighteenth century comes the Lotter and Lobeck pocket atlas, enlarged with extra maps of Germany to 43 maps in contemporary colour.
On a far grander scale is Gerard Valck's Mappe-Monde of 1686, a decorative world map in two hemispheres with California as an island and the four seasons in the corners. Ruscelli's copperplate of Ptolemy's map of the Iberian peninsula, Venice 1564, shows how the same peninsula looked in the ancient geography that the Renaissance still printed.
News from the East
Three works bring the reports of the Jesuit missions. Maffei's history of the Portuguese in Asia, 1605, was for generations the standard account of the Portuguese in India, with letters from India and Japan. A volume of three Jesuit relations from China, Ethiopia and Tibet, Paris 1629, in their first French editions, includes António de Andrade's account of the first European mission to Tibet. Olfert Dapper's description of Syria and the Holy Land, Amsterdam 1677, with its large folding panorama of Jerusalem, is one of the richly illustrated volumes Jacob van Meurs published on the lands of the East.
Science and scholarship
Two works continue the theme of the science behind the voyages. Gemma Frisius's guide to astronomy, cosmography and the use of the globe, in the corrected edition of 1553 with the world map on the title, is bound with three astronomical tracts of 1548. Cosimo Bartoli's Del modo di misurare, Venice 1564, is a richly illustrated first edition on surveying and practical geometry. From the Enlightenment comes a volume of the Neuchâtel Descriptions des arts et métiers containing the duc de Chaulnes's method for dividing mathematical and astronomical instruments, with his microscope and micrometers.
Scholarship of another kind is represented by Polyaenus's Stratagems of War, Leiden 1690, in Greek and Latin with extensive contemporary manuscript notes, the first edition of Horsley's Britannia Romana, 1732, the founding work of Romano-British archaeology, and Carlo Pellegrino's Praxis Vicariorum, Venice 1677, a handbook for church and secular judges in the Kingdom of Naples. Gabriel Bucelin's Nucleus, Ulm 1652, is a pocket compendium of history with small woodcut maps of the countries of Europe, and the plate volume of Cacciatore's Nuovo atlante istorico, Florence 1833, holds 130 plates of history, costume and geography.
Sea charts by Van Keulen
Three charts from the Van Keulen firm's Zee-Atlas, all in original colour, show the routes to the south: the Strait of Gibraltar, the western Mediterranean between Catalonia, the Balearics and Barbary, and the coast of Guiana, with a cartouche of indigenous figures.
Russia, the Black Sea and the Ottoman world
A group of maps follows the great powers of the east. Frederik de Wit's map of the Russian Empire is taken largely from Nicolaes Witsen's great map of Tartary. Visscher's chart of the Sea of Azov and the Crimea dates from the time of Peter the Great's Azov campaigns. Guillaume de l'Isle is represented by Little Tartary and the Crimea, the southern Black Sea and his historical map of the ancient East. With them come the Homann firm's Imperium Turcicum and a small French map of Muscovy.
Towns and views
Five plates from Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates orbis terrarum, in old colour, show Tienen, Orléans, Dunkirk, Gravelines and Bourbourg, Oberwesel and Boppard on the Rhine and Autun and Nevers. Blaeu's map of the territory of Metz is in old colour as well. Finally, five eighteenth-century vues d'optique published by Huquier in Paris take us to Spain: the Alhambra in Granada, Cádiz from the harbour, the main square of Cádiz, the Plaza de San Francisco in Seville and Seville with the Torre del Oro and Triana.
The story of how the road to the East passed from Portugal to Holland, and of the science and the maps behind it, is told in our new Journal article, The Secret Road to the Indies.
All these works can be seen in the collection on the site. We will gladly send further photographs or details on request.