Hereditas Antikvárium

Fair Partner ✔
16. Könyvárverés

Amsterdam, 1637.
An exceptionally rare Mercator projection world map by Claes Janszoon Visscher, also known as the “Twelve Caesars Map”. It is one of the most decorative examples of the Baroque “carte-a-figures” style and one of the most spectacular world maps published in the 17th century. Visscher used the cartographic basis of the beautiful copper engravings of Willem Janszoon Blaeu and Pieter van den Keere, but also updated it with numerous contemporary discoveries. He refined the cartography of Hudson Bay and depicted the Le Maire Strait and the Great Wall of China. However, the unknown southern continent, “Magellanica Sive Terra Australis Incognita” still dominates the southern part of the map field, moreover, the Anian Strait, the mythical islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and Korea shown as an island can be also seen.
The trend of “carte-a-figures” maps came to the fore at the height of the golden age of Dutch cartography, in the 17th century. These charts were no longer intended for navigational purposes, but rather to impress the viewer, and thus the best cartographers of Amsterdam – Hondius, van der Keere, Blaeu, Jansson, and Visscher – competed to satisfy the needs of collectors with their offerings and to create the best of the best. They also sought to preserve the functionality of the map field, so the decorative elements were mainly concentrated on the frame decoration of the sheet. The most popular themes for the borders were city plans and views, combined with figures wearing the local costumes of the inhabitants of the represented region – hence the name of the map type. Although each publisher had a large stock, they still created newer, more vibrant, more monumental compositions, which they commissioned the most famous engravers to create. It can be observed that, apart from world and continental maps, the carte-a-figures version was mainly limited to maps showing European countries and regions.
One of the most impressive representatives of the type is our piece, where the engraver (whose identity is unknown, but Shirley assumes it could have been Pieter Goos) used allegorical female figures to personify geographical areas in the images of the richly ornamented frame decoration and also tried to present the native flora and fauna. The starting point of the viewer’s gaze (the upper left corner) is occupied by the figure of Europe, dressed as a queen, sitting on a globe with a crown on her head, a sceptre in her right hand, a fruit-bearing branch in her left, with a battle scene in the background, proclaiming Europe’s supremacy in the hierarchy of civilizations. After that, the figures of Suetonius’ “De Vita XII Caesarum” – Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, after whom the map was “named” – come to life in the finely crafted images, which depict the emperors on horseback, in full battle regalia. In the upper right corner of the page, there is an allegory of Asia in rich, noble attire, sitting on a camel, with a censer in her right hand, and with elephants and also a battle scene in the background, but in the case of our item, about half of this engraving vignette is missing. The lower band of the border, which contained the symbolic depictions of other six emperors (Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasianus, Titus, and Domitianus), as well as Africa and America, has also been destroyed.
The seven images surrounding the two sides of the page show the views of eight cities (Rome, Amsterdam, Jerusalem, Tunis, Mexico, Havana, Pernambuco, and Bahía de Todos Santos) and the traditional clothes of representatives of six different ethnic groups – Europeans, Asians, Africans, North Americans, South Americans, and the giants of the Strait of Magellan (the right-hand column of images is missing from our piece). The map field is illustrated with galleys, native boats, and sea monsters, and in the two lower corners, he a side map of the polar hemispheres of the globe is placed. In the upper left corner, there is a large cartouche decorated with plant ornaments, the text of which introduces the reader to the history of the discovery of America starting with Columbus and Vespucci (in their case with the wrong year – 1592 and 1599 –, which was already corrected in the final version) and ending with Jacob le Maire. A little further away – in Greenland –, we can also read a short note about the travels of John Davis.
The scarcity of our item is indicated by the fact that in his monumental bibliography (The Mapping of the World), Rodney W. Shirley did not mention any copy with the 1637 date (the first state was dated 1639), and even Hollstein did not come across one in 1989. Günter Shilder was the first to report on the edition in the fourth volume of his work “Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica”, published in 2000, and he only mentions two other copies that are kept in public collections: one in the Ingolstadt library and one in the Hanover library. Unfortunately, our copy is incomplete, but it still belongs to the greatest curiosities since the 1652 edition of the sheet is the one that rarely turns up at dealers.
Dimensions: 380 x 530 (410 x 503) mm (the map field itself is 300 x 445 mm). The right-hand and bottom frame decorations of the slightly darkened copy are missing. Our copy was most likely sold as part of a composite atlas, so the sheet was folded in these places, and the folded parts that got torn off along this line were destroyed. Restored at the bottom and right.
Schilder, Günter: Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica VI. (Alpen aan den Rijn, 2000.) 8.1., Shirley: 350 (unknown state by Shirley).