New Evidence for the Date of Five Rare Dutch-Italian Wall Maps: F. de Wit's World Map and W. J. Blaeu's Four Continents

ABSTRACT

Imitations of famous Dutch wall maps originally produced in Amsterdam by F. de Wit and W. J. Blaeu have recently been rediscovered in Italy. In Bologna, in the archive of Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, is a set of Blaeu's four wall maps of the continents, engraved on new plates by Pietro Todeschi and published by Giuseppe Longhi. The value of the discovery lies in the completeness of the exemplars, which also bear the publisher's imprint and date of publication, hitherto unknown: Europe 1677; Africa 1678; Asia 1679; America 1679/1680(?). An undated version of de Wit's world wall map, also published by Longhi, has come to light in the same archive. A copy of the same map, this time published by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi in Rome in 1675, was then found in Modena in the Seminario Metropolitano. Comparison of the two copies has provided a date for Longhi's undated issue; Longhi's map came after de' Rossi's, that is after 1675.

On a récemment redécouvert en Italie des imitations de fameuses cartes murales néerlandaises produites initialement à Amsterdam par F. de Wit et W. J. Blaeu. À Bologne, dans les archives de l'Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, se trouve une série de quatre cartes des continents de Blaeu, gravées sur de nouvelles planches par Pietro Todeschi et publiées par Giuseppe Longhi. L'intérêt de la découverte tient à l'intégrité des exemplaires, qui portent aussi la marque de l'éditeur et la date de publication, jusqu'alors inconnue: Europe 1677; Afrique 1678; Asie 1679; Amérique 1679/1680(?). Une version non datée de la carte murale du monde par de Wit, également publiée par Longhi, a été mise au jour dans les mêmes archives. Une copie de la même carte, cette fois publiée par Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi à Rome en 1675, fut aussi trouvée à Modène au Seminario Metropolitano. La comparaison des deux exemplaires a fourni une date pour la version non datée de Longhi: elle vient après celle de de' Rossi, soit après 1675.

In Italien wurden in letzter Zeit Nachahmungen von berühmten niederländischen Wandkarten, die ursprünglich in Amsterdam von F. de Wit und W. J. Bleau produziert worden waren, gefunden. Im Archiv der Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi in Bologna befindet sich ein Satz von Bleaus Wandkarten der Kontinente, von Pietro Todeschi in neue Platten gestochen und von Giuseppe Longhi verlegt. Der Wert dieses Fundes liegt in der Vollständigkeit der Exemplare, die auch Verlegerangaben und Erscheinungsjahre enthalten, die bisher nicht bekannt waren: Europa 1677, Afrika 1678, Asien 1679 und Amerika 1679/1680(?). Im gleichen Archiv fand sich ein undatierter Zustand von de Wits Wandkarte der Welt, der ebenfalls von Longhi veröffentlicht worden war. Ein weiteres Exemplar dieser Karte, diesmal mit den Angaben Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi in Rom (Verleger) und 1675 wurde im Seminario Metropolitano von Modena entdeckt. Ein Vergleich der beiden Versionen ermöglicht die Datierung von Longhis Variante. Da diese den späteren Zustand zeigt, muss sie nach 1675 entstanden sein.

Recientemente se han descubierto en Italia imitaciones de mapas holandeses famosos realizados en Ámsterdam por F. de Wit y W. J. Blaeu. En Bolonia, en la Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, se encuentra un conjunto de cuatro mapas murales de los continentes de Blaeu, grabados en nuevas planchas por Pietro Todeschi y publicados por Giuseppe Longhi. El valor del descubrimiento radica en el acabado de los ejemplares, que también llevan sello de la editorial y la fecha de publicación, hasta ahora desconocida: Europa 1677; África 1678; Asia 1679; América 1679/1680(?). Una versión sin fecha de mapa mural del mundo de Wit, también publicado por Longhi, ha salido a la luz en el mismo archivo. Una copia del mismo mapa, esta vez publicado por Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi en Roma en 1675, fue encontrado posteriormente en Módena, en el Seminario Metropolitano. La comparación de las dos copias ha proporcionado una fecha para la emisión sin fecha de Longhi; el mapa de Longhi se produjo después del de de' Rossi, es decir, con posterioridad a 1675.

KEYWORDS:

• Frederick de Wit
• Willem Janszoon Blaeu
• Giuseppe Longhi
• Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi
• Carlo Scotti
• Pietro Todeschi
• Giorgio Widman
• Christina of Sweden
• wall maps
• world map
• four continents maps (Europa, Africa, Asia, America)
• seventeenth century
• Amsterdam map publishing
• Rome map publishing
• Bologna map publishing

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Mons. Guido Vigarani Director of Library and Archives of the Seminario Metropolitano in Modena and to Dr Paolo Ceccardi, Chairman, together with all the staff of Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi of Bologna, for their kind assistance.

Notes

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. An updated overview on wall maps produced in the Netherlands is given in Cornelis Koeman, Günter Schilder, Marco von Egmond, and Peter van der Krogt, ‘Commercial cartography and map production in the Low Countries 1500–ca. 1672’, in The History of Cartography, vol. 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007), Bk 2: 1296–383, especially 1341–55.

2. On the popularity of wall maps in the sixteenth century among upper and middle class Venetians, see Genevieve Carlton, ‘Making an impression: the display of maps in sixteenth-century Venetian homes’, Imago Mundi 64:1 (2012): 28–40.

3. The Institute for the Artistic, Cultural and Natural Heritage (IBACN) is a regional organization devoted to the supervision of the cultural and environmental resources of Emilia-Romagna which promotes preservation, restoration and research projects on the heritage of the region.

4. More than 50 other views, plans and maps signed by cartographers such as N. Sanson, G. Delisle, N. de Fer, V. Coronelli, D. Vandelli, were also discovered.

5. The Seminario also has a set of Willem Janszoon Blaeu's four maps of the continents (Nova et acvrata totivs Evropae tabvla etc.), published by the same Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi in Rome in 1686. I have discussed these maps in Mariarosa Cesari, ‘Il ritratto del mondo nel Seicento: Le carte geografiche dei Quattro Continenti Blaeu/de' Rossi del Seminario Metropolitano di Modena’, in Il Carrobbio: Tradizioni problemi immagini dell'Emilia Romagna 36 (Bologna, Pàtron, 2010): 147–80. Some of the wall maps preserved in the Seminario had been described by Giorgio Tabarroni, ‘Un patto per l'eternità, beneficenza e attività educativa dopo l'Unità d'Italia, Le Opere Pie di Modena’, in Arte e Pietà: I patrimoni culturali delle Opere Pie (Bologna, Clueb, 1980), 342–51.

6. For an overview of the de' Rossi family firm, see Francesca Consagra, ‘The De Rossi Family Print Publishing Shop: A Study in the History of the Print Industry in Seventeenth-Century Rome (unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1993); David Woodward, ’The Italian map trade, 1480–1650’, in Woodward, The History of Cartography (see note 1), Bk 1: 777–79; and Carlo Alberto Petrucci, Catalogo generale delle stampe tratte dai rami incisi posseduti dalla Calcografia Nazionale (Roma, Libreria dello Stato, 1953). See also Anna Grelle Iusco, Indice delle stampe intagliate in rame a bulino e in acqua forte esistenti nella stamparia di Lorenzo Filippo De’ Rossi: contributo alla storia di una stamperia romana (Roma, Artemide, 1996), 39, 40.

7. Iusco, Indice delle stampe (see note 6), 375–76, in which is mentioned de Wit's world wall map. Iusco also notes that while in the de' Rossi sales catalogue of 1677 the de Wit's map engraved by Giorgio Widman is described as composed of 12 sheets, in the sales catalogue of 1689 it is said to be on 15 sheets. According to Iusco, Giorgio Widman had a long-lasting association with de' Rossi's printing house. He was already well acquainted with geographical subjects at the time he was asked to engrave the de Wit world map, having engraved maps for the Mercurio Geografico ouero guida geografica in tutte le parti del mondo conforme le tauole geografiche del Sansone, Baudrant e Cantelli, the atlas published by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi from 1669 onwards. The quality of the artistry on the de Wit map appears to be homogeneous, suggesting that the map was engraved solely by Widman, without the contribution of apprentices.

8. The oldest and most detailed source of information for Giuseppe Longhi's printing house is a manuscript preserved in the Archiginnasio Library (Bologna): ‘Notizie dei Stampatori e Librari per opera dei quali fu esercitata in Bologna la stampa con il catalogo di molte loro produzioni … di Bernardo Monti incominciato l'anno 1793’ (MS B 1319, vol. 3; fols. 1537–1543). See also Albano Sorbelli, Storia della Stampa a Bologna (Bologna, Zanichelli, 1929), 177; and Paolo Tinti, ‘Esiti della ricerca sull'editoria bolognese’, Paratesto Rivista Internazionale 5 (Pisa and Roma, Fabrizio Serra Editore, 2008), 30–37, at 31–32, for the development of Longhi's firm during the 18th century.

9. Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World. Early Printed World Maps 1472–1700 (London, Holland Press, 1993), entry 421 (pp. 443 and 446), and plate 311. Shirley comments that the de Wit firm's output was prolific, and he lists eight different world maps, most of uncertain date. The date of the first in the list should read 1660, not 1600.

10. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), entry 422 (p. 446), describing the twelve-sheet world map, mentions the Johann Maurits state and also a later state of the map dedicated to the German emperor Joseph I, who ruled from 1690 to 1711, which is reproduced in plate 313. Frederik Caspar Wieder, Monumenta Cartographica. Reproductions of Unique and Rare Maps (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1925–1933), 3: 66, dated the earliest state of the twelve-sheet map to c.1660. Wieder referred to three states of de Wit's map: the first dedicated to Johann Maurits and bound in the Atlas of the Great Elector in Berlin; the second dedicated in 1660 to the English King Charles II and bound in the Klencke Atlas in the British Museum (now British Library); the third dedicated to the German emperor Joseph I. The first and second states, he says, must be dated c.1661–1662, while the third must fall within the years of the reign of Joseph I. The exemplar (documenting the first Dutch state of the map dedicated to Johann Maurits) that we have referred to and reproduced in this article is located in the University of Amsterdam, Map Collection, OTM: HB-KZL W.X. 001. Shirley, however, points out that the Klencke Atlas contains not de Wit's, but Blaeu's map of 1648: Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), entry 371.

11. The allegorical scenes were the creation of the French painter Charles Le Brun (1619–1690) and engravings of them by Gilles Rousselet were becoming popular. See Daniel Wildenstein, ‘Les ouvres de Charles Le Brun d'après les gravures de son temps’, Gazette des Beaux Arts 28 (1965): 162–65. See also Véronique Meyer, L'oeuvre gravé de Gilles Rousselet, graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle: catalogue général avec les reproductions de 405 estampes (Paris, Paris Musées, 2004), 182–83. De Wit's prints of the four vignettes, engraved by the Flemish Pieter de Jode II, were widely disseminated and the scenes were replicated on, for example, the world maps of Joachim Ottens (c.1670), Robert Greene (1676), and Justus Danckerts (c.1680).

12. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), entry 422. Wieder, Monumenta Cartographica (see note 10), 3: 66, noted that de Wit made only minor changes to Blaeu. Shirley disagrees with Wieder's dating.

13. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), entry 371, plate 280.

14. Wieder, Monumenta Cartographica (see note 10), 3: 66, recorded that there ‘exists also an Italian reprint of the map of De Wit’ without identifying the publisher. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), entry 471 (p. 488), also noted its rarity: ‘only one copy of the De Wit–De’ Rossi map was known (sold at Sotheby's London sale, 15th April 1980, lot 551)’. The map he reproduced as plate 346 has obviously suffered badly. In contrast, the Modena map is perfectly preserved.

15. All 55 plates in de' Rossi's Imagines Veteris ac Novi Testamenti (1675), reproducing Raphael's Vatican Loggia decoration and engraved by Pietro Aquila (1650–1692), were dedicated to the queen. After her death, de' Rossi was commissioned to record the imposing catafalque assembled in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Vallicella and the solemn funerary procession to St Peter's Basilica, as reported in Infermità, morte e funerale della Real Maestà di Cristina Alessandra Regina di Svezia (Rome, Giovanni Francesco Buagni, 1689).

16. The copper plate used for the title-page of the Imagines Veteris (see note 15) survives in the Calcografia of the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica, Rome (Fondo De’ Rossi, Inv. 846/01), together with a print (CL2335/13004).

17. A large number of such medals with the queen's portrait on one side and the sun with a human face and the motto on the other are kept in the Coin Cabinet in the Museum Gustavianum, Uppsala University: see Bror Emil Hildebrand, Sveriges och svenska konungahusets minnespenningar, praktmynt och belöningsmedaljer, part 1 (Stockholm, 1874), 308–11, nos. 95–102.

18. For a list of known extant exemplars, see Shirley, The Mapping of the World (note 9), entry 471 (p. 488).

19. The engraver Carlo Scotti is recorded as working in Venice (1667), Bologna (1685) and Modena (1693): Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, Seemann, 1936), 30: 409. In Bologna, Scotti was employed by several publishers, as can be seen from engravings bearing his name in local print collections. An analysis of the graphic style of Longhi's de Wit map suggests that, for the engraving of the new plates, Scotti was helped by at least two other artists. The high quality of his own work is recognizable in the allegorical scenes in the corners of the map; an engraver of average competence produced the armillary sphere and the figures of Hercules and Minerva; while an artist of modest skill was responsible for the astronomical circles and the background of the allegorical corner scenes.

20. Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), plate 313, entry 422.

21. Ibid., entry 336 for Henricus Hondius.

22. Reproduced in Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 9), plate 311, entry 421.

23. See Günter Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher: Ten Wall Maps by Blaeu and Visscher, Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica, vol. 5 (Alphen aan den Rijn, Canaletto, 1996), 101–2. Constantijn Huygens, a Dutch poet and politician, was the father of Christiaan who played a leading role in the scientific revolution.

24. Koeman et al., ‘Commercial cartography and map production in the Low Countries’ (see note 1), 1351.

25. Günter Schilder has made an intensive and comprehensive study of Blaeu's maps of the continents and lists all known states and surviving exemplars in his remarkable Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 75–213, from which I take much of my cartobibliographical information.

26. Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 75–77; 80–81; 83–84; 87.

27. Ibid., 5: 189–213. There is no room in the present article for a detailed discussion of the set discovered in the Seminario Metropolitano, Modena, published by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi in Rome in 1686, but see Cesari, ‘Il ritratto del mondo nel Seicento’ (note 5).

28. Pietro Todeschi was active in Bologna in the second half of the seventeenth century. He specialized in the engraving of subjects involving perspective, landscapes, views and maps: Thieme and Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon (see note 19), 32: 235. According to Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 195, in 1678 he engraved a large view of Bologna. As regards Todeschi's involvement in geographical subjects, I am grateful to Rodney W. Shirley who has brought to my attention the entry 448(A) in his online Corrigenda and Addenda to the fourth edition of The Mapping of the World (see Robert Putman's website, http://www.antiquemaps-fair.com/Blog/?cat=17), where he records a double-hemispherical world map on two sheets with decorative side borders and matching maps of the four continents by Willem J. Blaeu, published by Francesco Sabatini 1655 [or more likely c.1670?] and probably engraved by Pietro Todeschi. In June 2009 the maps were displayed by the Altea Gallery, London.

29. For the map of America engraved by Todeschi, see Philip. D. Burden, The Mapping of North America, a List of Printed Maps: 1511–1670 (Rickmansworth, Raleigh, 1996), 521, entry 410, pl. 410; and Günter Schilder, Nederlandse foliokaarten met decoratieve randen, 1604–60: Duch Folio-Sized Single Sheet Maps with Decorative Borders, 1604–60, Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica, vol. 6 (Alphen an den Rijn, Canaletto/Repro-Holland, 2000), appendix, 428, map 13 (ill. 14). Schilder refers to the only extant exemplar, described by Burden, now in the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, which he says was derived from the America of Hondius/Janssonius of 1623, whereas Burden suggests Hondius's America of 1618.

30. The Dutch engraver's name, ‘Ia vanden Ende sculp’ [Josua van den Ende], was copied by the Venetian engraver and appears on the map of Africa near the cartouche in the lower left corner. According to Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 83, this means that Scolari must have copied Blaeu's second issue of the set (1612), not the first (1608), since van den Ende's name does not appear on the first issue.

31. Orazio Quaranta was one of the revisers of the Index of Prohibited Books. A complete set of de' Rossi's 1666 maps of the four continents is held in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo di Orvieto, Italy: see Maria Teresa Di Palma, ‘Proponere orbem terrarum orbi spectandum’, in L'Europa delle carte dal 15. al 19. secolo, autoritratti di un Continente, ed. Marica Milanesi (Milano, Mazzotta, 1990), 26–31, especially 30–31.

32. For an otherwise complete list of known extant exemplars of Longhi's edition, see Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 190, 195–99. See also Roberto Almagià, ‘Alcune preziose carte geografiche di recente acquisite alle Collezioni Vaticane’, in Collectanea Vaticana in honorem Anselmi M. Card. Albareda a Bibliotheca Apostolica edita (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1962), 1: 1–22; and Maria Teresa Di Palma, ‘Le quattro carte murali dei continenti della Società Geografica Italiana’, Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, ser. IX, 8 (1991): 525–29.

33. Wieder, Monumenta Cartographica (see note 10), 3: 75, year 1673, maps n.112–115.

34. Schilder, Tien wandkaarten van Blaeu en Visscher (see note 23), 5: 198 n.375, contradicts Wieder's statement that the set was in a private Dutch collection and says it was in the Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd collection in Amsterdam. In the list of Recent Acquisitions in The Geographical Journal, 60 (1922), 233–34, in referring to a set of Blaeu's continents newly arrived at the Royal Geographical Society, tentatively assigned to Pietro Todeschi, it was reported that Wieder had traced a set of continents in possession of K. Hollandsche Lloyd at Amsterdam and that these maps seem to be an early Dutch version. Johannes Keuning, W. Jansz Blaeu. A Biography and History of His Work as a Cartographer and Publisher (Amsterdam, M. Donkersloot–De Vrij, 1973), 100, 159 n.5, citing the Geographical Journal, declared that the set published in Bologna by Pietro Todeschi in 1673 was copied from a state republished by N. Visscher. Almagià, ‘Alcune preziose carte geografiche’ (see note 32), 9, accepted Wieder's date, except that he wrote 1672 instead of 1673. Walter W. Ristow, A la Carte: Selected Papers on Maps and Atlases (Washington, Library of Congress, 1972), 68–69, also quoting Wieder, gives 1673. Burden, The Mapping of North America (see note 29), 521, entry 410, refers to a set of continents after Blaeu produced in Bologna by Pietro Todeschi in 1673. If Wieder in the 1920s did indeed see a map bearing the date 1673, it has not yet come to light.

35. The report is published online on the site of Clive A. Burden Ltd, ‘Corrigenda and Addenda’, vols. 1–2, last updated 6 April 2008 (http://www.caburden.com/). Entry no. 433 refers to the maps in question.

36. Todeschi was responsible for the re-engraving of Matthäus Greuter's twelve-sheet wall map Italia that Longhi published between 1675 and 1676, an exemplar of which is preserved in Florence at the Istituto Geografico Militare, Archivio Carte Antiche, Coll. 195-4, Inv. 3161. See also Luciano Lago, Imago Italiae, la fabbrica dell'Italia nella storia della cartografia tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna (Trieste, Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2002), 742–43. I am currently investigating the Roman edition of Greuter's twelve-sheet wall map Italia published by Domenico de' Rossi in 1695, discovered in the Seminario Metropolitano, together with other editions I have located elsewhere.