Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594)
Background:
For nearly sixty years, during the most important and exciting period in the story of modern map making, Gerard Mercator was the supreme cartographer, his name, second only to Ptolemy, synonymous with the form of map projection still in use today. Although not the inventor of this type of projection he was the first to apply it to navigational charts in such a form that compass bearings could be plotted on charts in straight lines, thereby providing seamen with a solution to an age-old problem of navigation at sea. His influence transformed land surveying and his researches and calculations led him to break away from Ptolemy's conception of the size and outline of the Continents, drastically reducing the longitudinal length of Europe and Asia and altering the shape of the Old World as visualized in the early sixteenth century.
Mercator was born in Rupelmonde in Flanders and studied in Louvain under Gemma Frisius, Dutch writer, astronomer and mathematician. He established himself there as a cartographer and instrument and globe maker, and when he was twenty-five drew and engraved his first map (of Palestine) and went on to produce a map of Flanders (1540) supervising the surveying and completing the drafting and engraving himself. The excellence of his work brought him the patronage of Charles V for whom he constructed a globe, but in spite of his favour with the Emperor he was caught up in the persecution of Lutheran Protestants and charged with heresy, fortunately without serious consequences. No doubt the fear of further persecution influenced his move in 1552 to Duisburg, where he continued the production of maps, globes and instruments culminating in large-scale maps of Europe (1554), the British Isles (1564) and the famous World Map on 18 sheets drawn to his new projection (1569). All these early maps are exceedingly rare, some being known by only one copy.
In later life he devoted himself to his edition of the maps in Ptolemy's Geographia, reproduced in his own engraving as nearly as possible in their original form, and to the preparation of his 3-volume collection of maps to which, for the first time, the word 'Atlas' was applied. The word was chosen, he wrote, 'to honor the Titan, Atlas, King of Mauritania, a learned philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer' . The first two parts of the Atlas were published in 1585 and 1589 and the third, with the first two making a complete edition, in 1595 the year after Mercator's death.
Mercator's sons and grandsons named above, were all cartographers and made their contributions in various ways to the great atlas. Rumold, in particular, was responsible for the complete edition in 1595. After a second complete edition in 1602, the map plates were bought in 1604 by Jodocus Hondius who, with his sons, Jodocus II and Henricus, published enlarged editions which dominated the map market for the following twenty to thirty years
Gerard Mercator (2)
1628 Gerard Mercator & Henricus Hondius Antique Map Canton of Aargau Switzerland
- Title : Argow...Per Geradum Mercatorem Cum Privilego...
- Size: 21in x 17in (530mm x 430mm)
- Condition: (A) Very Good Condition
- Date : 1628
- Ref #: 26090
Description:
This original copper plate engraved antique map of the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland by Gerard Mercator was published by Henricus Hondius in the early 1628 French edition of Gerard Mercators Atlas.
These maps, published in the early editions of Mercators atlas, are the original maps drawn and engraved by Gerald Mercator in the mid to late 16th century, published by his son Rumold as an atlas, after his death, in 1595. After two editions the plates were purchased by Jodocus Hondius in 1604, and continued to be published until the end of the 1630s by Henricus Hondius, when some of the plates were re-engraved and updated with the help of Jan Jansson.
General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 21in x 17in (530mm x 430mm)
Plate size: - 18 1/2in x 14in (475mm x 350mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)
Imperfections:
Margins: - Light age toning
Plate area: - Light toning along centerfold
Verso: - Light age toning
Background:
The area of Aargau and the surrounding areas were controlled by the Helvetians, a member of the Celts, as far back as 200 BC, eventually being occupied by the Romans and then by the 6th century, the Franks. The Romans built a major settlement called Vindonissa, near the present location of Brugg.
The reconstructed Old High German name of Aargau is Argowe, first unambiguously attested (in the spelling Argue) in 795. The term described a territory only loosely equivalent to that of the modern canton, including the region between Aare and Reuss, including Pilatus and Napf, i.e. including parts of the modern cantons of Berne (Bernese Aargau, Emmental, parts of the Bernese Oberland), Solothurn, Basel-Landschaft, Lucerne, Obwalden and Nidwalden, but not the parts of the modern canton east of the Reuss (Baden District), which were part of Zürichgau.
Within the Frankish Empire (8th to 10th centuries), the area was a disputed border region between the duchies of Alamannia and Burgundy. A line of the von Wetterau (Conradines) intermittently held the countship of Aargau from 750 until about 1030, when they lost it (having in the meantime taken the name von Tegerfelden). This division became the ill-defined (and sparsely settled) outer border of the early Holy Roman Empire at its formation in the second half of the 10th century. Most of the region came under the control of the ducal house of Zähringen and the comital houses of Habsburg and Kyburg by about 1200.
In the second half of the 13th century, the territory became divided between the territories claimed by the imperial cities of Berne, Lucerne and Solothurn and the Swiss canton of Unterwalden. The remaining portion, largely corresponding to the modern canton of Aargau, remained under the control of the Habsburgs until the conquest of Aargau by the Old Swiss Confederacy in 1415. Habsburg Castle itself, the original seat of the House of Habsburg, was taken by Berne in April 1415. The Habsburgs had founded a number of monasteries (with some structures enduring, e.g., in Wettingen and Muri), the closing of which by the government in 1841 was a contributing factor to the outbreak of the Swiss civil war – the Sonderbund War – in 1847.
1628 Gerard Mercator & Henricus Hondius Antique Map Canton of Zurich Switzerland
- Title : Zurichgow...Per Geradum Mercatorem Cum Privilego...
- Size: 21in x 17in (530mm x 430mm)
- Condition: (A) Very Good Condition
- Date : 1628
- Ref #: 26093
Description:
This original copper plate engraved antique map of the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland by Gerard Mercator was published by Henricus Hondius in the early 1628 French edition of Gerard Mercators Atlas.
These maps, published in the early editions of Mercators atlas, are the original maps drawn and engraved by Gerald Mercator in the mid to late 16th century, published by his son Rumold as an atlas, after his death, in 1595. After two editions the plates were purchased by Jodocus Hondius in 1604, and continued to be published until the end of the 1630s by Henricus Hondius, when some of the plates were re-engraved and updated with the help of Jan Jansson.
General Definitions:
Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable
Paper color : - off white
Age of map color: -
Colors used: -
General color appearance: -
Paper size: - 21in x 17in (530mm x 430mm)
Plate size: - 18 1/2in x 14in (475mm x 350mm)
Margins: - Min 1/2in (12mm)
Imperfections:
Margins: - Light age toning
Plate area: - Light toning along centerfold
Verso: - Light age toning
Background:
The territory of the canton of Zürich corresponds to the lands acquired by the city of Zürich after it became reichsfrei in 1218. Zürich pursued a policy of aggressive territorial expansion especially during the century following the revolution of the guilds in 1336. Zürich joined the Swiss Confederacy in 1351.
Zürich claimed and lost the Toggenburg in the Old Zürich War of the 1440s. The northern parts up to the river Rhine came to the canton after the city of Zürich purchased Winterthur from the Habsburgs in 1468. In 1651, Zürich purchased Rafzerfeld from the counts of Sulz. At this point, almost all of the territory of the modern canton (as well as some territories beyond its modern borders) was owned by Zürich; exceptions include Wülflingen (acquired 1760), Buch (acquired 1761), Dietikon, which was a condominium, and Rheinau (owned by Rheinau Abbey).
In the 18th century, the inner bailiwicks (Innere Vogteien) were under direct administration of city officials, while the outer bailiwicks (Äussere Vogteien) were ruled by the reeves of Kyburg, Grüningen, Greifensee, Eglisau, Regensberg, Andelfingen, Wädenswil, and Knonau. The city of Winterthur was nominally subject to Zürich but retained far-reaching autonomy.
Zürichgau, the name of the medieval pagus, was in use for the territories of the city of Zürich during the 15th and 16th century; the term canton (Kanton) gradually entered use in the 16th century, but Zürichgau remained widely used well into the 19th century (becoming obsolescent after the formation of the modern canton in 1831).
Under the short-lived Helvetic Republic (1798–1803), the canton of Zürich became a purely administrative division. In 1803, some former possessions of Zürich to the west gained independence as part of the Canton of Aargau. In 1804 the Kantonspolizei Zürich was established as Landjäger-Corps des Kantons Zürich.
