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LARGE WALL MAP OF EUROPE WITH 18 CITY VIEWS & MAPS
WITH COATS OF ARMS & CLASSICAL FIGURES
[MAP - EUROPE]. WIT, Frederick de. Nova et Accurata Totius Europĉ Tabula.
Amsterdam, Frederick de Wit, 1700 (engraved ca. 1660/63). Large engraved wall map of Europe (121 x 166 cm), with the main map on 6 sheets (together 99.5 x 123.5 cm), 16 city profiles and bird's-eye views plus 2 city maps (Madrid & Moscow) down the sides, a letterpress description of Europe in Spanish at the foot (with 1 decorative woodcut initial), the Latin title in a panel on slips across the head of the entire assembly, and a decorative border at the sides. The main map has a second title "Europa" in a cartouche at its foot, with Europa sitting on Zeus in the form of a bull and other classical figures, putti and cattle; an inset map of one terrestrial hemisphere (centred on Europe and Africa); a large cartouche of drapery supported by putti with a note on the calculation of distances, illustrated with geodesic diagrams; another putto and an allegorical figure supporting the coat of arms of "Germania," with those of seven independent European kingdoms below it; 7 compass roses; and reticulated scales of latitude and longitude forming a border. The map and nearly all decorations coloured by a contemporary hand. Assembled and mounted on modern cloth, in a wooden frame.
| Orders and Information | € 125000 |
Third edition of a rare and magnificent wall map of Europe, Turkey and the entire Mediterranean Sea at a scale of about 1:5,000,000, beautifully decorated with allegorical figures, putti, coats of arms, etc., with eighteen smaller views and maps (9 on each side, each 12 x 18 cm) showing the cities Rome, Seville, Prague, London, Copenhagen, Cracow, Cologne, Lisbon and Madrid (on the left), and Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Gedansk, Stockholm, Frankfurt am Main, Antwerp, Constantinople and Moscow (on the right). Madrid and Moscow (at the foot on either side) are maps, while the others are profiles or bird's-eye views. Hollstein records only one copy of the present edition (and two copies of the 1672 edition; we have not located a copy of the ca. 1660/63 edition), and it is a different issue, with the text in Latin and with views of Nürnberg and Vienna instead of the maps of Madrid and Moscow. The decorations are extensively revised from the 1672 edition, with a different title-strip, drapery instead of garlands for the geodesic cartouche, to which De Wit has added supporting putti and the coats of arms and supporting figures below the cartouche. De Wit's editions also show some revisions to the cartographic content, for example in the eastern Arctic.
Frederick de Wit (1629/30-1706) and Nicolas Visscher took over Blaeu and Janssonius's roles as the leading Dutch cartographers in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, and De Wit was especially known for his decorative figures, coats of arms, etc. His wall maps in particular have been called "the most beautiful of the seventeenth century" (Werner citing Leo Bagrow). The present map shows the coats of arms of "Germania" (oddly represented by the Imperial eagle with the impaled arms of Austria and Castile), Spain (represented by the arms of the long dead King Charles I, that is, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V), France, "Anglia" (in fact the arms of England quartered with those of Scotland and Ireland, a form not used by the English Kings and Queens until the nineteenth century), Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Portugal, all new in the present 1700 edition.
The map owes its basic concept, approximate format, (stereographic) projection and note on geodessy to Willem Jansz. Blaeu's 1608 Nova et Acurata Totius Europĉ, published in at least seven editions to post-1657, but De Wit's first edition was more directly based on Joan Blaeu's 1658/59 Europĉ Nova Descriptio, which Blaeu printed from the revised plates of Hondius's map of 1613 or later, which did not copy the cartographic content of the 1608 map. All three show a grid of parallels and meridians with the prime meridian running through Tenerife. De Wit's map extends further north (to about 75° N latitude) than Blaeu's of 1608, including even Bear Island (Bjornoya) in Svalband, and the city views and maps are not based on Blaeu's. De Wit is believed to have first published his series of four continental maps ca. 1660/63 (to accompany his world map), but revised them in 1672 and again for the present third edition in 1700. De Wit's title cartouche with figures, at the foot of the main map, is wholly independent of his predecessors, and he made other changes in the decoration and cartographic content, as noted above, some new in 1700 (the new title strip in 1700 turns back to that in Blaeu's 1608 map). He often produced maps in multiple issues for his international market. The present copy and that at the Amsterdam University Library are both dated 1700 (at the foot of the main map), and we have noticed no differences in the six map sheets, title strip, or the four half sheets with sixteen city views. But instead of the Amsterdam copy's letterpress description of Europe in Latin, the present copy has a Spanish translation (drop-title "Nueva Descripcion de la Europa" and imprint "En Amsterdam, en casa de Frederico de With, vive en el Calver-Straat ... en la emeña del Pascaart Blanco"). Moreover, the letterpress text in the Amsterdam copy is flanked by views of Nürnberg and Vienna (printed on separate pieces of paper mounted below the four half sheets with the other sixteen views, eight on each side), while the present copy has instead maps of Madrid and Moscow (all four appeared in at least some copies of the 1672 edition). De Wit printed numerous city maps and views in this style, with 6 or 8 to a sheet and with matching egg & dart borders on the sides and matching corner decorations, but some of the plates were apparently adapted for use with the present wall map, because the maps of Madrid and Moscow are found at the top of a sheet of 6, while their corner decorations in the present map are designed for their position at the foot of the column of views (in both versions, the map of Moscow departs from the style of the others in the placement of its name and panel).
The surface of the map is somewhat worn and shows some restorations, and as in all copies located of any edition there are tears and small holes repaired, here mostly in the open ocean, the sky of some city views, and portions of the letterpress text. This copy can fill gaps in the other known copy of the 1700 edition, such as the end of the title strip "... a F. de Wit." and the title to the view of "Cracovia." The second copy recorded of a beautifully decorated wall map of Europe.
