This large finely
engraved beautifully hand coloured original antique map
of the African continent was published by
Johann Baptist Homann in 1715.
A beautifully hand coloured map on strong clean paper.
Being part of the
Mediterranean world, the northern coasts of the African
continent as far as the Straits of Gibraltar and even
round to the area of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries)
were reasonably well known and quite accurately mapped
from ancient times. In particular, Egypt and the Nile
Valley were well defined and the Nile itself was, of
course, one of the rivers separating the continents in
medieval T-O maps. Through Arab traders the shape of the
east coast, down the Red Sea as far as the equator, was
also known but detail shown in the interior faded into
deserts with occasional mountain ranges and mythical
rivers. The southern part of the continent, in the
Ptolemaic tradition, was assumed to curve to the east to
form a land-locked Indian Ocean. The voyages of the
Portuguese, organized by Henry the Navigator in the
fifteenth century, completely changed the picture and by
the end of the century Vasco da Gama had rounded the
Cape enabling cartographers to draw a quite presentable
coastal outline of the whole continent, even if the
interior was to remain largely unknown for the next two
or three centuries.
The
first separately printed map of Africa (as with the
other known continents) appeared in Munster's
Geographia from 1540 onwards and the first atlas
devoted to Africa only was published in 1588 in Venice
by Livio Sanuto, but the finest individual map of the
century was that engraved on 8 sheets by Gastaldi,
published in Venice in 1564. Apart from maps in
sixteenth-century atlases generally there were also
magnificent marine maps of 1596 by Jan van Linschoten
(engraved by van Langrens) of the southern half of the
continent with highly imaginative and decorative detail
in the interior. In the next century there were many
attractive maps including those of Mercator/Hondius
(1606), Speed (1627), Blaeu (1 630), Visscher (1636), de
Wit (c. 1670), all embellished with vignettes of
harbours and principal towns and bordered with elaborate
and colourful figures of their inhabitants, but the
interior remained uncharted with the exception of that
part of the continent known as Ethiopia, the name which
was applied to a wide area including present-day
Abyssinia. Here the legends of Prester John lingered on
and, as so often happened in other remote parts of the
world, the only certain knowledge of the region was
provided by Jesuit missionaries. Among these was Father
Geronimo Lobo (1595-1678), whose work A Voyage to
Abyssinia was used as the basis for a remarkably
accurate map published by a German scholar, Hiob Ludolf
in 1683. Despite the formidable problems which faced
them, the French cartographers G. Delisle (c. 1700-22),
J. B. B. d'Anville (1727-49) and N. Bellin (1754)
greatly improved the standards of mapping of the
continent, improvements which were usually, although not
always, maintained by Homann, Seutter, de Ia Rochette,
Bowen, Faden and many others in the later years of the
century.
(Ref:
Tooley; M&B)
General Description:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color: - off white
Age of map color: - Original & later
Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink
General color appearance: - Authentic
Paper size: - 23in x
20 1/2in (585mm x 520mm)
Plate size: - 22 1/2in x 19 1/2in (570mm x 495mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)
Imperfections:
Margins: - Bottom margin extended from plate-mark
Plate area: - Light toning along centerfold
Verso: - None
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