Hereditas Antikvárium

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16. Könyvárverés

Amsterdam, 1610.
An exceptionally rare “news map” of the Rhineland, prepared by Nicholas van Geelkercken, with a south-to-north orientation, published as a separate sheet. The cartographic basis for the sheet, published by David de Meine, was the work of Gerard Mercator, and was most likely intended for an international market, due to its bilingual, Dutch and French inscriptions with the purpose to provide news of the Jülich-Cleves succession crisis. Since Prince John William died without an heir in 1609, not only did his closest matrilineal relatives, the rulers of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and Palatinate-Neuburg, claim the inheritance, but Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor, also wanted to annex the territory to the Habsburg Empire. The situation that was threatening with war was immortalized by an engraving made in the “carte-a-figures” style fashionable at the time, with portraits of the opposing parties to the succession dispute in the two side frames – on the left side, Emperor Rudolf and Archduke Leopold, and on the right, John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Wolfgang William, Duke of Palatinate-Neuburg – as well as the coats of arms of the Jülich (Gulick), Cleves (Cleef), Berg (Bergh), and La Mark (Marck) dynasties.
Our item – since the first Jülich crisis was short-lived and its news value decreased, moreover, van Geelkercken published another map on the subject in 1610 – was probably published in a relatively small number of copies. Koeman mentions only five copies worldwide in his bibliography.
Dimensions: 325 x 530 (410 x 535) mm. Fine, clear copy.
van der Krogt I.: 2381:1B.