Centers of Map Publishing in Europe, 1472–1600 Robert Karrow
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23 • Centers of Map Publishing in Europe, 1472–1600 Robert Karrow Any attempt to provide the geographical parameters of ers of the Sixteenth Century, these maps have not been map publishing from the inception of map printing to the personally examined; instead, the database relies on de- beginning of the seventeenth century must come to terms scriptions made by other researchers. Second, these de- with data that are fragmentary and disparate. The first, scriptions naturally exhibit a wide variety in their styles and most crucial, caveat is that our bibliographical con- and methods, in their means of characterizing areas trol of maps in this period is barely up to the task. The shown, in the astuteness with which dates are assigned to first attempt at a systematic census of sixteenth-century undated maps, and in their general accuracy. Third, the printed maps identified almost eleven hundred titles.1 The most recent published effort, including an inventory of the maps of a restricted group of sixteenth-century cartogra- 1. Leo Bagrow, “Gedruckte Karten des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Berlin, 2 1933. Xerox copy of typescript in the Newberry Library, Chicago; lo- phers, lists some two thousand printed maps. So before cation of original unknown. attempting to make any generalizations about the centers 2. Robert W. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their of map production, it seemed necessary to attempt some- Maps: Bio-Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, how to build a more substantial body of cartobiblio- 1570 (Chicago: For the Newberry Library by Speculum Orbis Press, graphical data. This effort has been entirely synthetic, 1993). 3. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century; Bagrow, “Gedruckte based on the accumulation of information from existing Karten”; C. Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici: Bibliography of Terrestrial, published catalogs and cartobibliographies. Maritime, and Celestial Atlases and Pilot Books, Published in the Nether- lands up to 1880, 6 vols. (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1967– Sources of Data 85); Ann-Mari Mickwitz, Leena Miekkavaara, and Tuula Rantanen, comps., The A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection in the Helsinki University Li- brary: Annotated Catalogue of Maps Made up to 1800, 5 vols., indexes The source catalogs and cartobibliographies were selected by Cecilia af Froselles-Riska, vols. 5.1 and 5.2 (Helsinki: Helsinki Uni- with an eye toward efficiency, that is, toward amassing the versity Library, 1979–95); Peter H. Meurer, Atlantes Colonienses: Die largest file practicable while limiting the sources as much Kölner Schule der Atlaskartographie, 1570 –1610 (Bad Neustadt a.d. as possible. The map descriptions in Karrow were entered Saale: Pfaehler, 1988); R. V. Tooley, “Maps in Italian Atlases of the Six- in a database against which other sources were compared teenth Century, Being a Comparative List of the Italian Maps Issued by Lafreri, Forlani, Duchetti, Bertelli, and Others, Found in Atlases,” Imago and to which other data were added. Several other sources Mundi 3 (1939): 12– 47; Peter H. Meurer, Fontes cartographici Or- were comprehensively surveyed; they were examined, item teliani: Das “Theatrum orbis terrarum” von Abraham Ortelius und seine by item, and entries were made for any maps not already Kartenquellen (Weinheim: VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1991); Tony Camp- represented in the database. These sources are: Bagrow’s bell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472–1500 (London: British Library, typescript list; Koeman’s Atlantes Neerlandici; the catalog 1987); and Mireille Pastoureau, Les atlas français, XVI e–XVII e siècles: Répertoire bibliographique et étude (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, Dé- of the Nordenskiold collection in Helsinki; Meurer’s bib- partement des Cartes et Plans, 1984). A new edition of Koeman’s Atlan- liography of atlases published in Cologne; Tooley’s list of tes Neerlandici is in progress: Peter van der Krogt, Koeman’s Atlantes maps in sixteenth-century Italian atlases; Meurer’s Fontes Neerlandici (’t Goy-Houten: HES, 1997–), but at the time of writing the cartographici Orteliani; Campbell’s Earliest Printed original edition was more comprehensive. Maps; Pastoureau’s bibliography of French atlases; and 4. The database provides for nineteen pieces of information about each map: (1) date, (2) primary author, (3) secondary author or editor, an unpublished typescript catalog of the Newberry Li- (4) principal area shown (represented by a number from the Library 3 brary’s Novacco Collection of Italian engraved maps. of Congress G Schedule), (5) secondary area shown (Library of Together, these sources describe more than seven thou- Congress number), (6) name of principal area shown, (7) name of sec- sand maps and views printed before 1601, for which very ondary area shown, (8) brief title of map, (9) geographical coordinates basic bibliographical information was abstracted.4 for map area, (10) language, (11) whether a manuscript or printed, (12) printing technique, (13) dimensions, (14) number of pages or The database thus developed has a number of limita- sheets, (15) whether a separate publication or part of a larger work, tions that must be borne in mind. First, except for most of (16) country of publication, (17) city of publication, (18) publisher, and the two thousand maps described in Karrow’s Mapmak- (19) source bibliography. 611 612 The History of Renaissance Cartography: Interpretive Essays descriptions vary in the basic principles that underlay their Maps in Books Separate Maps compilation: some are cartobibliographies whose compil- 1400 ers attempted to make them complete within their stated limits, while others are catalogs of particular collections 1200 for which no claims are made that they are exhaustive. 1000 Fourth, there is the problem of varying definitions of what constitutes a “map.” Campbell, for example, does not de- 800 scribe city views, while Mickwitz and Miekkavaara list views as well as some tiny cosmographical diagrams that 600 others might consider only marginally cartographic. Most Number of Maps of the sources consulted do include city and town views, 400 and we have followed their lead, supplementing Camp- bell’s entries by adding the town views listed in his appen- 200 dix and the list of Nuremberg Chronicle views in Rücker.5 Fifth, a decision needed to be made about how many 0 appearances of a given map to count. Many maps first published in 1570 in Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum, for instance, were reprinted in twenty-four dif- 1472–80 1481–90 1501–10 1511–20 1521–30 1531–40 1541–50 1551–60 1561–70 1571–80 1581–90 1491–1500 1591–1600 ferent editions before 1601. One of these is the map of fig. Spain by Charles de l’Escluse; should it be counted as one 23.1. NUMBER OF SEPARATE MAPS COMPARED WITH NUMBER OF MAPS IN BOOKS AND ATLASES, instance of map publication or as twenty-four instances? 1472–1600. The solution adopted here has been to count only the first appearance of a map printed from a given woodblock or hoc atlases.7 The hard covers of a book have provided copperplate. While this decision severely limits the num- refuge for many an early map that might otherwise have ber of maps in the study, it has the virtue of emphasizing been ravaged by wear and tear, and this indeed raises the a certain level of cartographic creativity over mere press- question of whether figure 23.1 is representative of the ac- work. One can also be confident of having a more com- tual situation. Separately published maps are undoubt- plete database, because the identification of maps printed edly under-represented. from particular plates or blocks is easier than the identi- Despite these caveats, it is believed that the “collective fication of all appearances of maps printed from those catalog” embodied in the database constitutes the most plates or blocks. Of course, given the synthetic nature of comprehensive listing of maps published before 1601. the compilation, critical judgment is necessary; it is not al- When collated to eliminate manuscript maps and dupli- ways clear from the bibliographical descriptions whether cate entries and to isolate the first appearances of maps two maps are separate productions or whether they rep- (that is, the first printings of individual woodblocks or resent later issues, states, or printings of another map. copperplates), the total number of items in the database A final caveat has to do with the survival rate of early was reduced to some fifty-five hundred. It is this corpus maps. Skelton felt confident in asserting that, because of that forms the basis for most of the analysis that follows. their awkward and fragile format, “the wastage or loss of early maps, up to the sixteenth century and even later, has Analysis of Map Production been more severe than that of any other class of histori- by Type of Cartography cal document.” 6 There are a number of early maps whose existence is testified to in other documentary evidence, The study database includes examples of several different but of which no copy is now extant (these are included in cartographic genres, distinguishing among maps proper, the database). Similarly, a number of maps recorded in the celestial maps, cosmographical diagrams, and globes. database exist in only one or two copies. Skelton’s com- The latter three categories make up a minuscule percent- ment relates to maps published separately, but a great age of the total, representing only 40 items; for the pur- many maps, in fact most maps in the early modern pe- riod, were issued as integral parts of books. As figure 23.1 illustrates, throughout the period a high percentage of 5. Campbell, Earliest Printed Maps, 219–22 (appendix 1D, “Ex- maps were included in books and atlases. In only one cluded Entries: Town Plans and Views”), and Elisabeth Rücker, Die decade, the 1560s (1561–70), did separately published Schedelsche Weltchronik: Das größte Buchunternehmen der Dürer-Zeit (Munich: Prestel, 1973).