I hope this message finds you well. I am writing because a recent presentation has reminded me of a pre-1700 world map that does not appear in your magnificent cartobibliography, and I wonder why. I am talking about the map(s) made in China around 1600 by Mateo Ricci and coworkers. I was guessing, maybe these works have been excluded because of the technique used to make them – somehow not equivalent to printing as was practiced in Europe at the time?

Best regards,
Luis A. Robles Macías

376(A) Anon c.1650 or possibly earlier [new entry]
A small anonymous world map size is 82 x 154 mm. has been noted by the Parisian dealer
Libraire Le Bail. The The title is ‘Terraquei Globi Delineatio’, appearing at the head
of twin hemispheres. California is an island and ‘Terra Australis’ is in primitive form.
The climatic zones are marked in the circumference of each hemisphere which are placed
against a diamond patterned background.
Reference: Le Bail catalogue 2010, no.425. The globe gores of Pierre Moullart-Sanson
(entry 592A) are illustrated on the same page, no.427.

501(A) William Berry c.1680 (or later) [new entry]
Ashley Baynton-Williams has provided me with details of a further world map by William Berry.
It is signed as engraver by John Rich who engraved Berry’s ‘…Roads of England’ in 1679. The
world map title is ‘A New Map of the World Projected upon the Poles of the Equator’ and depicts
two main hemispheres with three further circular celestial diagrams and an oval ‘old world’
projection at the foot. There is no mention of this (second) world map by Berry in Sarah
Tyacke’s ‘London Map-Sellers’, nor in the article by David Bannister in ‘The Map Collector’ no.21.

530(A) Joseph Moxon – Nicolas Visscher 1685 [new variant]
Joel Kovarsky has advised me of a further variant of the world map originated by Joseph Moxon.
His oval world map, as shown in plate 339 with decorative surrounding vignettes, in this instance
lacks the central text and in its place is the imprint ‘At Amsterdam by Nicolaus Visscher with
Privilege…, 1685.’ The map was very probably intended for a Dutch Bible.

It’s a RARE ANTIQUE – Learning Geographical Atlas (worldwide), 30 tables, the publication Kartogroficheskogo zavefdeniya Ilyin, S. St Petersburg, July 9, 1894.

Atlas in excellent condition, accompanied by photos from the underlying link.

https://picasaweb.google.com/Diman82/Atlas?authkey=Gv1sRgCLSzhP3xwcWllgE&feat=directlink#

Please feel free to contact me with any details regarding this item,
Dima.

I have a minor comment regarding entry 70 (Vadianus, 1534).
The current text says that this map is a “simplified reduction” of the one listed as Münster-Holbein 1532 (entry 67). However, I have noticed that the graticule is not the same. The author of the map in entry 67 used the same graticule as Bordone with meridians that bend markedly towards the Poles, particularly at high latitudes, whereas in Vadianus’ map the curvature of meridians is much smaller. Aside from that, the coastlines of the Indian Ocean are somewhat different between the two maps.

Regards

My apologies for a delayed response, as I have been away from my computer with a rather bad attack of laryngitis, now hopefully on the mend.

With regards

Rodney Shirley

Entry 51 (Apianus)

A couple of weeks ago I had in my hands a first edition of Petrus Apianus’s Cosmographicus Liber at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and could compare its astrolabe-map with the slightly different one reproduced in your book, which comes from a later edition. I later found a digital image of that map from the same 1st edition of 1524 on the website of the John Carter Brown Library (http://tinyurl.com/4safgn4).

My first comment is that there is a slight inaccuracy in the current text where it affirms that the map extends up to 25º South. The external circle that limits the map represents the Tropic of Capricorn, which is actually located at 23.4º South. While it is difficult to measure the exact latitude of the Tropic on Apianus’s map I think it is less than 25ºS; in any case I think it would be more exact to say that “the map extends up to the Tropic of Capricorn.”

A detail that might be worth noting is that in the first edition the decorative motif in the center of the map is a David star. Apparently in later editions that star was replaced by other motifs.

Finally, on the first edition’s map the word OCCIDENS has been printed to the right of the map and the word ORIENS to the left. In the erratum section of the book it is indicated that this is an error and that the two words should be exchanged, as they appear on your image. I would like to point out that in fact both choices are totally wrong. This map is a polar projection where the North is in the middle and therefore East and West are not located at any of the sides of the map. Going West in such a map means moving clockwise and going East moving anticlockwise. Similarly wrong is the fact of having printed “Meridies” below the map and “Media nox” above it.

Entry 107 (Gastaldi 1561)

In the 2001 edition a picture is described as “Philip II of Spain… conversing with two conquistadores”

I agree that one the characters, dressed in armour, could be a Spanish conquistador, even though he could also come from other European countries. On the other hand, the attire and especially the headdress of the other character do not correspond at all to the Spanish fashion of the 16th century. For me he is clearly dressed as a Turk or as what Europeans of that time would call a “Moor”.