| Method | Copper engraved with hand colour |
| Artist | Mercator, Gerard and Hondius, Jodocus |
| Published | [Amsterdam, c.1620] |
| Dimensions | 150 x 187 mm |
| Notes |
A decorative miniature map of the wanderings of Aeneas, the Trojan hero and ancestor of the Roman people, from a Latin edition of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas Minor. The map depicts the journeys of Aeneas and his band of Trojan exiles across the Eastern Mediterranean. The map is heavily annotated with notes from Virgil's Aeneid, listing all of the locations mentioned in the text, as well as the various tribes, peoples, and nations of the Greek, Trojan, North African, and Latin worlds. Principal cities and towns are picked out in red, and many of them are provided with further anecdotes and explanations. In the sea itself, two groups of warships are depicted. One, off the coasts of North Africa and Sicily, depicts a scene of ship-wreck. A number of the epic poem's more fantastic elements are also featured on the map, including the Cyclopes, included amongst the inhabitants of Sicily, the monster Scylla at the straits of Messina, and the rocks of the Sirens off the coast of Naples. The map was likely inspired by a similar large scale example published by Ortelius for the Parergon, a collection of maps on classical and biblical subjects intended as a supplement to the famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594) originally a student of philosophy was one of the most renowned cosmographers and geographers of the 16th century, as well as an accomplished scientific instrument maker. He is most famous for introducing Mercators Projection, a system which allowed navigators to plot the same constant compass bearing on a flat map. His first maps were published in 1537 (Palestine), and 1538 (a map of the world), although his main occupation at this time was globe-making. He later moved to Duisburg, in Germany, where he produced his outstanding wall maps of Europe and of Britain. In 1569 he published his masterpiece, the twenty-one-sheet map of the world, constructed on Mercator's projection. His Atlas, sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi, was completed by his son Rumold and published in 1595. After Rumold's death in 1599, the plates for the atlas were published by Gerard Jr. Following his death in 1604, the printing stock was bought at auction by Jodocus Hondius, and re-issued well into the seventeenth century. Jodocus Hondius (14th October 1563 - 12th February 1612) was a Dutch Flemish cartographer, engraver, and publisher. Hondius is most famous for reviving the primacy of the work of Gerard Mercator, through the publication of his Atlas, and the smaller Atlas Minor, in the early seventeenth century, at a time when cartography was largely dominated by Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The Mercator-Hondius Atlas was composed of maps pulled from plates Hondius had purchased from Mercator's grandson, as well as thirty-six new plates Hondius commissioned, and in many cases engraved, himself. He is also believed to have been the chief engraver of the plates for John Speed's Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. Following his death, he was succeeded by his sons, Jodocus the Younger and Henricus, as well as his son in law Jan Jansson. Condition: Minor time toning and dirt staining to edges of sheet. Large vertical printer's crease to centre of map. Old tear repair to bottom margin. Latin letterpress title into plate at top, and Latin letterpress text on verso. |
| Framing | mounted |
| Price | £400.00 |
| Stock ID | 52481 |