Pi Cardiae Belgicae Regio nis descriptio

        This beautiful 1579 map of  northern France is by Abraham Ortelius.  This was part Ortelius's "Theatro Del Mondo" world atlas which contains some 180 maps and illustrations with this map being in it's first state.  Picardy is a region of Northern France that lays north of the Paris suburbs and extends to the beaches of Somme Bay  within the English Channel which is outlined in rouge.  Other areas on the map include Brittany, the Normandies, Champagne and current day Nord-Pas-de-Calais where the River Scheldt, displayed on the map, originates in the French village of Gouy and flows via Hainault and Ghent to Antwerp.  All of which make up the Hauts-de-France region.  There are numerous rivers, historic communes, forts, place names, etc etc on this map.  A wonderful hand colored piece by one of the best, from a long time ago, that exudes no revision.

        Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598)  was born in Antwerp to Anna Herwayers and Leonard Ortels.  Abraham changed the face of cartography in 1570 with his "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" atlas.  It consisted of all original plates on uniformly sized pages with correlating text.  A major leap from prior models for the populist to engage with and it worked. There were over seven thousand of his 1570 editions made with only a couple hand fulls existing in tact today. There were 31 editions of this atlas alone.   His first published map was "Typus Orbis Terrarum" in1554 of the world which is extremely rare.  Of  course no one lives for four hundred and fifty years and a lot of  these atlases were broken up into individual pages for easier and more profitable sale.  He was so in tune with the geographical aspects of the earth that he was the first to propose that the continents were floating and that they had fractured from one  giant continent  over the coarse of time.   Abraham was one of the great intellects of his time.  He passed June 28, 1598 in Antwerp. Belgium and lies in St Michael's Abbey in Antwerp.

       This very interesting circa 1635 map is by Johannes Janssonius  or Jan Janson.  The Northeastern part of the map starts in current day Oslo, Norway and ends in current day Northern Uppsala, Sweden.  The map observes Copenhagen and other parts of Denmark residing around the scale cartouche.  There is a  litany of islands and archipelagos including Gotland, Oland and Aland that dot the Skagerrak, Kattegat and Baltic sea.   In the center of the map are the two largest lakes in Sweden.  Lake Vanern and Lake Vattern, Vanern being the larger.   These lakes are not only striking but they helped strike the boundaries of Westro Gothia, Oostro Gothia, and Smalandia making up Gotaland as noted on the map in their Latin form as is the text on the verso.  Gotaland or the land of Geats or Goths ,depending on the time frame, is reflective of the Germanic people settling there since the beginning of A.C.E. Most of what is known about the Goths of Sweden is by folklore and outsider accounts due to the lack of local text up until about the 13th century.  Probably the most accurate depiction of the people in this  area lies in the "Gutasaga".  It is a single manuscript regarding the history of Gotland prior to it's Christianization circa 1350.  The only copy survives at the National Library of Sweden along with the Gutalag, a Swedish law book that originated around 1220 A.C.E. that contains the Gutasaga. This historical map was published one year after Sweden's first adopted constitution in 1634 know as the Instrument of Government which challenged the Monarchy. This strife bears witness in the incredibly decorative title cartouche. 

       Johannes Janssonius was born in Arnhem, Netherlands in 1588.  He worked and lived in Amsterdam as a cartographer and publisher taking after his father Jan Janszoon.  Johannes married Elisabeth de Hondt.  Elizabeth was the daughter of the famous cartographer Jodocus Hondius. One would spare no remiss to say Johannes was one of the greatest mapmakers of the early 1600's with numerous publications as well as eight book stores. A very busy man until his death in 1664.   

      This magnificent sea chart of Ireland was published by Pieter Goos in 1666.  It also has parts of England and Scotland.  It was initially published  earlier by Frederick de Wit in 1656.  This map was a culmination of  mapmakers such as Claes Visscher,  William Jansson Bleau and Anthonie Jacobsz with Anthonie's son Theunis Jacobsz ultimately owning the plate.   A fairly substantial cast indeed.  Goos bought the plate from Anthonie Jacobsz and used it in his  "Dee Zee Atlas ofte Water Weerland" which has been proposed as one of the acute sea atlases of its time.  The map was part of Anthonie's "De Lichtende Columne ofte Zeespiegel" 1644-1650 atlases.

      Pieter Goos was a Dutch Cartographer and publisher.  He was born and passed in Amsterdam 1616-1675.  His father was Abraham, also a Dutch Cartographer whom if you have one of his maps you would be doing well.  Some of their maps are extremely rare, in fact going into the hundreds of thousands. Pieter was also the first to chart Christmas Island. 

      Also in 1666, William Penn Sr. moved to Ireland to manage his father's estate.  While he was there,  he involved himself in the mutiny of Carrickfergus in Norhtern Ireland  during the nine years war.  It was fought between Queen Elizabeth I and the Gaelic  tribe of the MacDonnells.  It resulted in the defeat of the  Queen with the help of the Earl of Tyrone.   William Penn Jr.  (1644-1718) moved on to be the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, what is now part of the  United States.  Pennsylvania is named after his Father.

     This decorative 1694 map of Britain, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the coast of the Netherlands is by Nicolas Visscher II.  He was part of a multi-generational family- run business in Amsterdam that spanned  over 150 years starting with his great grandfather, Nicolas Joannis Visscher or Claes Jansz Visscher   (1550-1612).  Claes the First  produced  what are now very rare engravings such as VAN DE VELDE the four seasons and the panoramic View Of London before the fire as well as 17th Century Dutch landscapes.  Cleas the Second (1587-1662), with his father's knowledge and teachings scaled the business immensely.   Although a leading draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker and publisher of his time, it was also the Golden Age. The outdated and  mundane Catholic Church was met with the explosive appeal of Martin Luther and his Ninety Five Thesis nailed to its front doors.  The Reformation was in full fledge cognition and the Visschers would be one of the major beneficiaries of the campaign.  The son of Claes the Second is Nicolas Visscher I (1618-1709) .  He became a master at mapmaking at his time with works like "Novi Belgii  Novaeque Angliae nec non partis Virginae tabula, Orbis Terrarum Nova et Accuratissima Tabula, and Novissima et Accuratissima Totius Americae".  Today they are very sought after maps for their history, quality and rarity.  Lastly, Nicolas Visscher II (1649-1702) who made this eclat map.   He preferred his name Nicolaus.  Back then there were many aliases.  His Grandfathers also went by the name Piscatore.  Cartographers were rock stars of their time for bringing to life,  for the general public with access to publications, what explorers discovered beyond general knowledge of what the world was and the possibilities of what was out there.  This map was part of his Atlas Minor. 

After he passed,  his wife Elizabeth ran the business.  She later sold the plate to Peter Schenk who produced a later state of the map.

      This map was dedicated to King William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland,  or William III of Orange  (1650-1702) in portrait.  General Belgii Federati was cum privelegio ordin (licensing/consult throughout Visscher's Atlas Minor)  with  Guilielmo III D. G. religions et libertatis et defensori.

       Mr. Visscher II was part of the Golden Age but was also part of the eve of the Renaissance embodied

by his motifs and cartouches. The Renaissance represented exemplary effort and strife for perfection without necessary  monetary overcompensation.   Many of these mapmakers sold their plates to maintain their livelihood.  Their passion is exhibited in these maps.

      One of the distinctions of this particular map is that it is uncolored.  The last time I saw this map for sale uncolored was 2018.    I believe  there are some maps that are equally as striking without color, 

particularly this one, which also makes it very rare .  The map has been deacidified and has German text on verso. 

      On a side note, Visscher is a Dutch name meaning fisherman.  About twenty-six percent of the English language comes from the German Language.

    This topographically-lush and historically important map is by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718).  He was born in the Republic of Venice. This map was published standalone in 1680 and It was also  published in his atlas " Isolario Dell Atlante Venito" (1696).   It is representative of the Zara region of what was Dalmatia at the time.   The diagonal layout on the map seems to mimic the actual parallels which also provides more space for terrestrial and maritime borders.   Along with his style, it creates a sweeping whimsical visual effect - a truly genius piece of work.

    Vincenzo was a Friar, cartographer, publisher and encyclopedist.   His Atlante Venito Atlas included

339 engraved maps,  charts and and views as well as 15 portraits, and yet  he is most noted for his globes.  He made two globes for The Duke of Parma to be witnessed by Cardinal Caesar d'Estrees,

Ambassador to Rome and a King Louis XIV confidante.   He was commissioned by the King and moved to the French capital of Strasbourg.   He made two globes out of wood slats, plaster and cloth, each with a diameter of 151 inches weighing in at a ton each.  One of the globes represented the cosmos with their constellations.  The other entailed the continents and oceans with illustrations of peoples endemic to their environs.   Observations of the time, many via North America expeditions by  Cavalier and LaSalle,  depicted California as an island and Australia as basically uncharted territory.  They are now displayed at the Francois Mitterrand Library in Paris.  His globes were and are famous because a lot of them have their own stories such as the Bergamo Globes. 

     Although Dalmatia and some surroundings were under Venetian protection and in cases control and ownership during this period, it has switched hands many times.   There were a couple dozen wars around the world during the 1690 decade alone.  The garnish and garrison of the Balkans is one of the most active histories since the Bronze Age but one thing remains the same, the unmistakable beauty of the landscapes and islands along and within the Adriatic Sea in this part of the world. This map is certainly reflective of the latter.  

     This 1696 map details the Ruhrgebeit region of western Germany which is now referred  to the as the Ruhr Valley, an urban area in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany.  Once a county of the Roman Empire it lays on both sides of the Ruhr and Lenne Rivers.  Although this map was published by Chez Hubert Jaillot the original engraving was created by Nicolas Sanson as part of his "Atlas Nouveau".  Sanson is considered the father of French cartography (1600-1667).  Jaillot (1632-1712)  published numerous works of his contemporaries as well as his own and most notably his "Atlas Francois" which was a compilation of a number of Sanson's maps.  The word Westphalia, although a sect from the ancient Saxons Westfalen, it is most identified  from The Treaty of Westphalia marking the end of the Thirty Years War,  one the most destructive connected series of wars in the history of Europe beginning in 1618.

       La Marck or Van der Marck was a noble family that first appeared in the area from around 1200.

The family history started with Adolf I .  Adolph  inherited the area as well as the Mark Fortress from his father Frederick I, Count of Berg - Altena who passed in 1198.  Frederick had united Berg - Altena after its division in 1180 and made Hamm its Capital.  After Frederick  was gone Adolph was referred to as 

Count de la Marck.  Compte translates in English  to "account".  A very interesting map with a very interesting piece of history to it.  

    The This beautiful and very detailed 1716 map is by Johann Baptiste Homann.  The map encompasses the Southern half of Italy from Terracina to the Adriatic Sea to the South including Northern Sicily.  The Aeolian or Lipari Islands are featured North of Sicily which include current day Lipari, Vulcano,  Panarea, Salina, Alicudi, Filicudi and Stromboli which have the same volcanic beginnings. The map shows also the Trimiti Islands off the coast of Puglia and Gargano Peninsula, a very history rich archipelago. 

     Johann Homann was born in Bavaria in1664.  As a teen he studied at a Jesuit school with ambitions of becoming a priest. In accordance with reformations of his time, he converted to Protestantism in 1687.  In 1692 Johann moved to Vienna where he studied cartography and publishing.  In 1702 he moved to Nuremburg where he opened his own publishing company.  Deutschland at this time was no longer a hub for cartography which enabled Homann to produce very high quality maps at a lower price.  His conscientious calculations were noticed by Charles VI which landed him Imperial Cartographer to the King as well as a Royal Member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. These accompaniments afforded him "Privilege" to the most up to date geographic information as well as copyrights.  

     This 1757 map is from The Gentlemen's Magazine, a London Publication.  Westphalia  or Westfalen is a region in northwest Germany.  Westphalians were one of the three sects of ancient Saxons with the other two being Engerns and Ostafalens started spreading throughout the area during the 5th century. Over the next 200 years Westphalians settled along the Ems and Hunte Rivers.   During the Saxon Wars 777-785 Charlemagne prevailed over Widukind and the Saxon Pagans and ordered them to subscribe to his Christianity.  The  Saxon Nobles were captured and executed while most of the general public maintained its separate identity.  It was in the 12th century that all of Saxony West of the Weser river became Westphalia.  The Peace or Treaty of Westphalia was signed in 1648 and was a culmination of two years of negotiation.  Signed in the cities of Munster and Osnabruck, it ended the thirty years war and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire otherwise intolerant of other religious sects in the area.

      The uniqueness of the Westphalia Agreement was that for the first time in history Country states were sovereign unto themselves despite the overall governing body.  A precursor model to the United States.  It is estimated the Thirty years and the Eighty Years war killed some 8 million people,  not so much because of military actions but  disease and starvation due to the debauchery of the economics 

and displacements within.

     This 1758 sea chart shows coasts of the British Isles, Iceland, Greenland and most directly Scandinavia.  It was published by Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) and featured in Antoine Francois Prevost's  " L' Histoire Generale des Voyages".  The map covers coastlines of  Finland, Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, The British Isles, and Canada from Baffin Island south to the ILe d'Anticosti which lies in the Gulf of  Saint Lawrence.  In addition to his six Atlases published  from 1753 to 1771,  Bellin was appointed chief cartographer to the French Navy  in 1721 at the age of 18 and twenty years later he became engineer to the French Hydrographical office as well as Official Hydrographer to the French King.

     The most central part of this map details Scandinavia, Finland and Iceland.  Generally speaking, 

Scandinavia is considered the Kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.  Some have argued that Finland and Iceland should be  inclusive because those inhabitants speak Scandinavian as well. 

      Although not a whole lot is known about the human beginnings in this region there some two hundred dwellings, petroglyphs and tools created from stone, bronze and iron that gives scientists some insight.  This part of Europe lagged in settlement due to the slow deglaciation.  It wasn't until around 12,000 BC that nomadic habitation took place.  There were a number of tribes and cultures during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic that subsisted by hunting, gathering and fishing.  The recession of the glaciers left open plains and tundra for its habitants to move freely hunting reindeer over vast areas.  The first known Scandinavian is know as the Koelbjerg man dated to around 8,000 BC. Ice ages are the greatest natural deforesters of the Earth. 

      In 551 AD Byzantine historian Jordanes used "Scandza" as a great island in his work called "Getica."

Jordanes referred to Ptolemy's description of Scandia "as a great island shaped like a Juniper leaf."

The inaccuracies and guesswork of the unseen on these maps during age of exploration compared to current common knowledge is intriguing.

     Scandinavia has been on the receiving end of of many explorations, raids, colonizations, conflicts as well as peaceful unions of extended content. Some of the adversities can been seen in the history of the Gulf of Finland.  Out of the suggested three million shipwrecks around the world's oceans, the Gulf of Finland boasts around five thousand of them.  The most noted natural cause is the salinity of the water there.  The gulf has many fresh waterways flowing into it.  There is also speculation of the high iron content of the shoreline interfering with compass readings.  Many of these ships are still being  discovered today, nicely in tact.  Whatever the case, the forests are back, the waters are clean and Scandinavia is one of the world's leaders in preservation and clean energies.

     Venezia 1775 Preffo Antonio Zatta con privilegio dell 'Eccmo Senato.  This decorative double page Map by Zatta is from his four volume "Atlas Nouvissimo" which  is considered one of the last meticulously decorated atlases to be struck.  It was a four volume set of the world.  Zatta (circa 1757-1797) was a Italian cartographer and publisher in Venice. 

      The map is catered toward Catalogna or Catalonia, Spain which is comprised of four provinces including : Barcelona, Tarragona, Girona and Lerida located in the Northeast of Spain.  It was in this area  the Frankish Kingdom established several counties east of the Pyrenees Mountains for defense against the Spanish Moors and Umayyad conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. The strife between Muslim and Catholic succession started early in the 8th century that lasted  to the fall of the Nasrid Kingdom in 1492.

     With the majority of the Iberian peninsula under Muslim control,  and relentless pursuit to the Pyrenees from the south,  the Umayyed invasion of Gaul was dismantled in the Battle of Tours on the 10th of October 732.  Charles Martel , Odo The Great and his Vasconians, undermanned by some 5,000  fighters,  tabled the defeat with some one thousand casualties to their opposition's 12,000.  Al Ghafigi,  the Muslim leader,  was killed in the conflict and the Umayyad Army withdrew after the battle.  This battle lay the foundation for the Carolingian Empire, the ruling dynasty of Martel's family,  for which Charles was offered Governorship by the Holy Roman Empire.  Charles passed on the offer and rendered the position to his son Pippin lll who upon his death was succeeded by Charlemagne.  Charlemagne or Charles the Great or Charles I  was the King of the Franks from 768,  King of the Lombards from 744 and Emperor of the Romans from 800.