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07 28th, 2009| 
MAPS
I F you choose to surround yourself, to whatever extent, with examples of the beauty to be found in the almost limitless products of craftsmen of the past, maps, not less than other works of art, will provide decoration, interest and often pieces of high artistic merit. This article does not attempt a history of cartography, for there are several excellent published works Which will guide the collector with authority; but some of the names and styles which are most frequently met, and some of the terms used, are here set out. English map-makers have reached their own peculiar heights of achievement, but the influence of Continental styles and cultures has been both felt and reflected. The rise of national schools or tendencies in map-making accompanied an ascendancy in maritime affairs. Sea-power and the consequent prospering of seaborne trade have a close bearing on the production of both land maps and sea charts. Ocean voyages of discovery, embarked upon by thriving and questing peoples, brought forth pictures, cartographic pictures, of new lands and new seas.
We may leave aside technical considerations of surveying, which were often not of paramount importance nor of remarkable accuracy, even into the 18th century. The processes by which maps were reproduced are one of their most interesting aspects, and much of what has been said in this Encyclopaedia relating to prints and books is applicable here. Many maps found by collectors today have come from books, either as illustrations to a text or from an atlas; a sobering thought that so many handsome volumes have been broken up. However, without it the beauty, interest and consequent pleasure of their contents would necessarily have been lost to thousands of people. Some-times, it is true, the books themselves were nothing but collections of maps by different engravers and publist-ers, so perhaps from one point of view the process is not without a certain reason. The names of engravers and publishers as well as of cartographers and surveyors are all signposts to the collector; indeed these functions were frequently combined by one individual.
PROCESSES
Manuscript maps, the beginning of everything in this field, are a special study; their discovery is a matter for consultation with the expert.
Engraved maps: the copperplate, taking the ’scratch’ of the craftsman’s graver, is the chief means by which maps were reproduced. The etched line, bitten into the plate by acid and having its own qualities, was also used, but to a lesser extent. In the r9th century lithography (printing from stone) was used, while the advent of steel in place of copper for engraving generally, although resisted by some craftsmen, was also applied with success to map-making. The woodcut, a reversal of the engraving process, in which the ink was carried on the surface left standing and not in the groove left by the tool, was the other important early medium. The quality of the woodcut is recognized in a heavier, less flexible line and a more compact or sculpturesque treatment of ornament. The block leaves no impression of its dimensions on the paper, whereas the copper plate, its edges rounded off to prevent tearing, leaves a shallow depression in the paper as it passes through the press. This depression is known as the plate-mark, the presence of which is a guide to the beginner that the map is in the first place printed and secondly that it is complete.
Beyond the plate-mark, the margins or spare paper are generally preferred as large as possible, for apart from setting-off the engraved surface of the map, they are some indication that it is in a reasonably unspoilt state. Though desirable, wide margins are neither essential nor inevitable, and a scarce map trimmed to its border or with very small margins is not to be passed by. The possibility of acquiring the better example is present in the minds of all collectors, not only of cartophiles. Within the plate-mark is the border, confining the detail of the map itself. From a single line, on some examples, the border may vary in others to an elaborate pattern in imitation of a carved picture frame. Within the border may occur a scale of miles or of units of latitude and longitude, although other uses such as a numero-alphabetical system for map references are to be seen. It should also be remembered that longitude, in times past and in other countries, has been measured from several places other than the now familiar Greenwich.
The folding of maps of large size into a volume of smaller dimensions can have caused wear, which is not a bar to good condition unless of serious extent. The way in which double-page maps were hinged to a stub of paper in the binding of a book and not sewn in, enabled them to lie flat, and has had the admirable effect of preserving them whole to this day.
To return to the inner surface, ornament, reflecting all the styles and decorative fashions of its period, and one of the attractive features of maps as a whole, is found on the title. This sometimes contains in addition to the necessary descriptive details, particulars and place of publication (the imprint) and the date, although the last is frequently ommitted, adding to the interest of the collector and sometimes to his undoing! These details are usually enclosed in a cartouche, perhaps architectural, in imitation of carving or drapery. Scenic titles or figure pieces give some of the most interesting and decorative additions to the purely topographical features. Insets such as descriptive notes, armorial bearings, views, town-plans or ‘close-up’ details on a large scale, are other points of embellishment. Vignettes occur in the form of land and sea battles, shipwrecks, beasts, sea-monsters and families of mer-folk; also groups of inhabitants pursuing their occupations and practising their customs. The Scale, sometimes comparing various measures of distance, is frequently the subject of artistic elaboration too. The Compass Rose, with its own long history of design, is a necessary feature, for the orientation of a map was not always with north at the top.
The wide use of Latin for the titling especially of early maps, gives often in abbreviated form, the ‘Sculpl.’ or ‘Fecit’ of the engraver, the ‘Delin:’or’Inven1.’ of the draughtsman, and the ‘Excud:’ ‘Apud’ or `Sumptibus’ of the publisher. The Lettering employed, apart from its obvious function of identification, has an important decorative part to play. Gothic, italic and Roman, plain and flourished, handsomely tailed or classically serifed, they are found to have a considerable effect on the surface pattern; the choice of certain styles and sizes of letter to denote particular features had early been made. In later times a marvellous variety of lower-case as well as capital letters ‘hollow’, ’shadow’, upright and italic, not to speak of several sorts of scripts, were the visual vocabulary of the map-maker.
The stages in the reproduction of a map are of importance from the time the first proof is taken. Two copies of what is seemingly the same item can, on inspection, reveal differences of greater or lesser extent, by which it is often possible to date them. Since the life of a copper plate was frequently surprisingly long and its ownership diverse, the range of possible variations is wide.
Colour is a matter of great interest and importance, for while the engraving was black and sharp on the white paper when it came off the press, and it was sold in that form, a large part of the map-seller’s business was the colouring of his wares. There are preferences today for the uncoloured specimen, but good original colour is so much a distinctive period feature that understandably it greatly enhances the value of many types of map. The specialist who applied pigment to the map, following certain time-honoured conventions, gave us those glowing, exciting and perhaps vivid effects which are a feature of ‘Contemporary Colouring’. Old maps are coloured for sale today, often in skilful imita-tion of the proper styles. Colour which has been along time on the paper will have made a darkening stain right through ; some tints, green in particular, have had a corrosive effect which now renders the map brittle where it was applied. The actual pigment used to colour early maps was often more or less opaque, concealing the engraving, and the way in which it was applied was frequently more spirited than meticulous.
MAKERS, ENGRAVERS AND PUBLISHERS
The names which form a monumental foundation for this subject are still to be encountered in the map-seller’s on terms of comparative familiarity. The great ones of cartography are still attainable by the humble collector, the Old Masters here being far less the companions of rich collectors than in almost any other branch of the Arts.
CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY of Alexandria, who worked in the 2nd century A.D., was brought to light again in the Renaissance, when an edition based on surviving manuscript copies of his Geographic, with maps, was published (Bologna, 1477). These maps were printed from copper plates, but some of the most famous early editions of the same book came from Germany, notably Ulm, 1482, and Strasbourg, 1513, in which they were printed from wood blocks. Here we have the two schools almost typifying the cultures on either side of the Alps. Ptolemy, with modern additions, was much reprinted and edited in both countries; here is the world as understood by the Ancients, approximate but recognizable, and with it visions of new continents as yet unexplored.
In Italy, the map-sellers of Venice and Rome, such as Forlani and Lafreri, produced maps ranging from continents in several sheets to small ones of islands on a single leaf, all from copper plates. They gathered together selections of the works of their competitors and contemporaries, into volumes of maps which were the forerunners of what we mean by the term Atlas, although that word was first used to personify a collection of his own maps in 1585, by Mercator, whose title-page showed the mythical king. The Italia of G. A. MAGINI (Bologna, 162o), which contains some plates from the hand of Benjamin Wright, an English engraver working on the Continent, presents a detailed series of elaborate maps of the country with crowded topographical pictures and but little added embellishment. Round about the end of the 17th century, Venice was the scene of the remarkable activity of M. V. CORONELLI (1650-1718), Cosmographer to the Republic, who conducted the Academy called Gli Argonauts and produced maps of a grand and ornamental nature.
One of the most important names in cartography, and probably the most generally familiar, GERHARD MERCATOR, lived from 1512 to 1594, and his Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditations (1585-95) contains the work of one who had been an instrument maker and an authority on the italic script in which he inscribed the place-names, as well as a draughtsman and engraver. The map-makers of the Netherlands were a closely knit fraternity, and it is of interest and importance to note how their stock-in-trade was passed from father to son and from publisher to successor. This is why the same map may carry several different imprints at various times; the plate was handed over to a new proprietor, and a new name and date appeared. As the plates wore, the lines were strengthened, new information was included and often a new dedication to some more recent notability replaced the older. Mercator’s business passed to sons and grandsons, but soon after 1600 it went to JODOcus HONDIUS (1563-1612), who had spent some ten years of exile in England. He published further editions of Atlas, with his own contributions, and his son Henricus also continued the work. Another famous name was brought into the business by marriage, in JAN JANSSON (15961664), who became Henricus’ brother-in-law and took control in about 1657.
ABRAHAM ORTELIUS of Antwerp (1527-98), friend of Mercator, collected from many sources and used the work of most of the known figures of cartographic and geographic repute. Having begun as a colourer and map-seller, he produced in 1570 his great Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, a step nearer the atlas of uniform maps which we know today. Some examples, particularly when in original or near-contemporary colouring, are among the most highly evocative of the spirit and decorative style of that age. The names Of FRANS HOGENBERG the engraver and GEORGE BRAUN his editor are linked in their wonderful Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published at Cologne between 1573 and 1618. The six books contain several hundred plan-views of important cities, many including costume figures, coats-of-arms and scenes of historical incidents, which make the series a valuable work of reference; the individual plates, which are reasonably common, are a source of more than ordinary interest. One of the links between our native map-makers and these great names on the Continent occurs here, for Frans Hogenberg, who was also responsible for putting on to copper the maps of Ortelius, had a brother Remigius who came to England and contributed nine of the plates to Saxton’s atlas.
Early maps of England were manifestly unsuited for the comings and goings of the Elizabethans, and the peril in which this country stood from foreign invasion hastened the realization that better surveys were needed. GEORGE LILY, another English exile abroad, had produced the first engraved map of Britain in two sheets printed at Rome in 1546; also Mercator had a map of England and Wales in 1564, and Ortelius included maps of England and Wales in his 1573 edition and later. It was, however, CHRISTOPHER SAXTON, a Yorkshireman, who proceeded under the Queen’s mandate to make his survey of the counties of England and Wales, and so produce the first collection of its kind in the world. The results, to the extent of thirty-four county maps and one of the country in general, appeared between 1574 and 1579, and were engraved by Nether-Landers like HOOENBERG and TERWOORT, and by Eng
lishmen like AUGUSTINE RYTHER, another Yorksbireman. The latter’s signature carried the qualification ‘Anglus’ to differentiate between the true-born English, of whom his contemporaries and we, too, have every reason to be proud, and on the other hand the Dutch and Flemish masters from whom we learnt. In style, however, there is little such difference. While a complete Saxton atlas is now something of a rarity, and maps from it in contemporary colouring are not exactly cheap, they are still obtainable. The graceful and sometimes elaborate script used is an ornament in itself; the Latin titles within their cartouches of fruit, flowers and bird-life, the Queen’s arms with the fleurs-de-lys and the Tudor dragon, give us the England of nearly four hundred years ago in spirit as well as name and appearance. The late Edward Lynam wrote: ‘Saxton deserves a place beside Shakespeare as an interpreter of the national consciousness, unity and pride which were the greatest achievements of Elizabethan England’ (British Maps and Mapmakers).
Saxton’s plates, in the hands of PHILIP LEA (d. c. 1700), who made considerable alterations, had a new lease of life, and later appeared under the Bowles’s name, also under that of Sayer (1763). Lea was a busy cartographer, globe-maker and publisher who also constructed and sold instruments.
Use was made of the word ‘Theatre’ for a display of maps, by JOHN SPEED (1552-1629), who in 1611 issued the renowned Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain. This bore similarities to Ortelius’ 71eatrum besides its title. Speed cast wide for his sources, and acknowledged the fact on many of his plates, which were engraved not in England but by Jodocus Hondius in Amsterdam. The book was a great commercial venture, not sheltered by royal or noble patronage, but well justified by its popularity, which called for many editions in the succeeding century. The maps, favourites today among collectors, owe a great deal to Hondius’s art. His masterly ornamentation of the ground-work with which Speed supplied him is to be recognized in the borders, titles and lettering. Speed’s own antiquarian fancy has given us the historic heraldry of the families which bore county titles, and the city plans, views of notable mansions and churches, etc. Compared with Saxton’s county maps, examples of Speed’s in early state are generally a little less expensive; the editions of the complete work were numerous and the life of the plates in the hands of successive publishers was long, copies bearing an imprint of about 1770 being known.
JOHN NORDEN (1548-1625) was a rival of Saxton’s, and while his smaller output did not share the popularity of the Tatter’s, his maps in some instances take pride of place, as for example in the delineation of the chief roads. The face of the countryside as it then was has assumed a lasting significance by the distinguishing of parks, noblemen’s seats, gentlemen’s houses, castles, market-towns and many other features not before shown, while the borders include a simple system of letters and figures for map references. W I L L I A M CAMDEN’S Britannia contained, in the Latin edition of 1607, some county maps engraved after Saxton and Norden, but smaller in size than their originals. The same work, in its English translation of 1695, contained some fifty county maps fostered by ROBERT MORDEN (d. 1703), not to be confused with Norden. These, of rather inferior and coarser style, are nevertheless interesting and quite common.
In the later 17th and 18th centuries, families like the OVERTON’S, J., H. and P., and the BOWLES’s, T., J. and C. (who were print- as well as map-sellers) handled other men’s plates, so that impressions of earlier works lived on under their ownership and passed to their heirs and successors down into the 19th century. Pursuing the connexion between England and the Netherlands, we find that.
-in-law PIETER VAN DEN KEER,
Hondius and his brother E i who by the same token should perhaps be called by the Latin form Kaerius, settled in Amsterdam on leaving England in the 1590s. As we have seen, Mercator’s Atlas continued to appear with many and valuable additions by
Hondius, so that his name and that of his son Henricus, is rightly connected with the editions published after 16o6. Their successor, Janson, had a formidable rival in the famous house which produced some of the finest maps of the 17th century, BLAEU of Amsterdam, the history of whose members and their contributions to both cartography and
printing is fascinating. WILLEM J ANSZOON BLAEU (1571-
1638) made confusing use of several variants of his name in signing and publishing his maps, and Gulielmus Blaeu and Gul. Janssonius are two of them, the latter apt to be mixed with Jan Janson. In style, many of the Blaeu maps show a more open design, with restrained Roman lettering which appears severe by contrast with earlier forms. Decorative heights were, however, reached with some plates, and the figures, are characteristic. At the present time county maps of England, Wales and Scotland from Blaeu atlases, copied it must be admitted from Speed, are to be found in the map-seller’s, as well as handsome representations of a great many other parts of the known world. The work, which must be considered a summit of achievement, and in which so many of these fine maps are gathered, is something once seen not easily forgotten — the Atlas Major or Geographic Blaviana of 166o. The imposing folio size, the lustrous vellum-gilt binding (also part of the Blaeu business) and its extent, in as many as twelve volumes, constitute a monument far outside the reach of the ordinary collector, who can, however, possess individual maps from it in contemporary colouring, heightened with gold and on paper which it is an inspiration to handle. In England RICHARD BLOME (d. 1705) made county maps for his own Britannia of 1673 and his Cosmography 1693, as well as Speed’s Maps Epitomised in a small size, 1685. Here again we have honest period decoration but somewhat rough workmanship. JOHN 0 0 1 L B Y (1600-76) conducted the first systematic survey of our roads and published Britannia … Description of the Principal Roads Thereof . . . in 1675, a work both ingenious and practical. The chosen highway, drawn as on a long scroll or strip which appears to be folded down across the page, leads the traveller from left to right, from bottom to top, up hill and down dale through hamlets and towns, past houses and halts. The nature of the country is shown by clusters or strings of hills, and such terms as ‘arable’ and ‘pasture’; inns are well noted and the mileage from the starting-point, with intermediate furlongs, are all set down. Its folio size, which makes plates from it such admirable decorative features today, was unhandy for travellers and later versions of the road atlas took on a smaller form. Ogilby’s activities were by no means confined to the Britannia; he published handsome folio
accounts of Africa (1670), America (1671) and Asia (1673),
which all contain maps and views of a most decorative nature.
The Netherlands with its great output of maps catered by translation for the other nations of Europe, the same maps serving England, Spain, France, Italy and Germany with appropriate texts. The famous Dutch makers, already mentioned, were followed by successors to both their fame and their business–the DE WIT’S, the V I S S C H E R’S, the
DANCKERTS’S, SCHENK, the MORTIER’s, ALLARD, whose maps are rich in style and full of detail.
The 18th century, at the beginning of which great use was still being made of the older authorities, saw throughout its course a series of important discoveries which enlarged the face of the globe; great advances in surveying practice and withal a rather bewildering process of amalgamation and succession on the part of the publishers and map-makers themselves.
France under Louis XIV had as Geographer Royal N I COLAS SANSON (1600-67), who with his sons, grandsons and successors, represents a major source of French cartography from the appearance of his first atlas in 1654, until about 1780. A. H. J A I L L OT (1632-1712), Sanson’s successor, and P. DU VA L, his son-in-law, are other names to be noted. French maps, like so many other aspects of French art, display a beauty and elegance in all their characteristics. Many are large, but with fine lettering and unobtrusive though fitting decoration. Lovers of French furniture and pictures will recognize many of the traits which please them in maps from the DF, LISLE’S, the DE VAUGONDY’S, J. N. BELLIN (d. 1772) and J. B. D’ANNVILLE (d. 1782).
As in the Netherlands and France, so in England important businesses were quickly taken up on the death of the principal by enterprising rivals and relatives. Reference to the standard works will give the collector the sequence and help him to identify and date his maps. Foreign talent was still much in evidence in this country; HERMAN M 0 L L (d. 1732), an kigri from Holland, published several collections, e.g. New and Complete Atlas (1719), from which individual plates are quite common. From highly decorative in the style of the time, they range to a type which almost dispenses with ornament in favour of maximum topograpl-deal information. Moll’s titles give a composite arrangement of architecture, figures, animals and floral settings, with frequent inset views and, for example in a map of England, an edging of complicated tables of distances from London, market-days, map references and `eastings and westings’ from the capital. His lettering is clear and frequently the only colour introduced is a tinted outline.
JOHN RocQuE, a Frenchman (d. 1762), has amongst others to his credit a large-scale map of London in two dozen sheets, an extensive and splendid work, and particularly when seen in original colour a feast of intimate detail.
EDWARD WELLS’S New Sett of Maps of Ancient and Present Geography, about 1700, carries on nearly. every plate a dedication to the short-lived son of Queen Anne, William Duke of Gloucester. The maps, although not in the highest class of workmanship, are good decoration.
JOHN SENEX, F.R.S. (d. 1740), produced such works as the New General Atlas of the World, 1721, which has some pleasant scenic cartouches. He also printed and engraved a new edition of Ogilby’s road maps, which was still being issued as late as 1775. His work is like Moll’s, but with generally less elaboration.
T H O M A s KITCHIN (d. 1784) was very active, and with EMANUEL BOWEN (d. 1767) likewise highly productive, they printed, for example, the Large English Atlas in 1755• Maps from this are handsome pieces of engraving with much light rococo ornament. Bowen also illustrated his own Complete System of Geography, 1744, and with J. OWEN brought out a smaller version of Ogilby called Britannia Depicts or Ogilby Improv’d, 172o, and subsequent editions for the next forty years.
Another notable figure was the prolific JOHN CARP (d. 1835), whose imprint will also be found on road maps, and who published a New and Correct English Atlas (1787) (still being issued in the 183os), containing pleasant county maps without the large decoration of previous periods. Maps from it are generally cheap.
THOMAS JEFFERYS, Geographer to the King (d. 1771), collaborated with Kitchin in a Small English Atlas (1749), and also compiled a finely engraved American Atlas, which was not, however, published until 1776.
WILLIAM F A D E N (d. 1836) succeeded Jefferys and continued to make the American continent the subject for his maps. North American Atlas (1777) and other collections contained views, plans and maps from original surveys, which are of great interest today.
A large output from the ARROWSMITH’S (father and son), Aaron and John, bridges the late 18th and early 19th centuries. With BRYANT, GREENWOOD, PICOT and lastly M 0 U L E, we find ourselves entering the Victorian era, with different standards and different processes. Moule’s county maps, 1836, from his English Counties Delineated, are still decorative with vignettes and ornamental titles, but have the somewhat studied elegance of the time.
The celestial or star map, often included in general atlases, can be a thing of great beauty; the imagery of the constellations, always a little baffling, was sometimes brought to a high degree of complexity. There were a number of star atlases of note, and the 17th century alone saw such as BAYER (1603), SCHILLER (1627), CELLARIUS (166o), HEVELIUS (16go); also CORONELLi and the Englishman SELLER, whose Atlas Coelestis is another of his ‘pocket-size’ publications.
In later times there were, FLAMSTEED, the first Astronomer Royal, with his Atlas Coelestis (1729); J. G. DoPPEL. MAYR (1742), etc. The stars were not always marshalled into the familiar shapes of deities and objects, schemes of Biblical figures and of heraldic arrangements being also proposed. Examples of coloured star maps can be striking, while the decorative possibilities of large photo-copies of uncoloured examples are considerable.
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