UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Redeeming the Truth: Robert Morden and the Marketing of Authority in Early World Atlases Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2j66c4qh Author York, Laura Suzanne Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Redeeming the Truth: Robert Morden and the Marketing of Authority in Early World Atlases A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Laura Suzanne York 2013 © Copyright by Laura Suzanne York 2013 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Redeeming the Truth: Robert Morden and the Marketing of Authority in Early World Atlases by Laura Suzanne York Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2013 Professor Muriel C. McClendon, Chair By its very nature as a “book of the world”—a product simultaneously artistic and intellectual—the world atlas of the seventeenth century promoted a totalizing global view designed to inform, educate, and delight readers by describing the entire world through science and imagination, mathematics and wonder. Yet early modern atlas makers faced two important challenges to commercial success. First, there were many similar products available from competitors at home and abroad. Secondly, they faced consumer skepticism about the authority of any work claiming to describe the entire world, in the period before standards of publishing credibility were established, and before the transition from trust in premodern geographic authorities to trust in modern authorities was complete. ii This study argues that commercial world atlas compilers of London and Paris strove to meet these challenges through marketing strategies of authorial self-presentation designed to promote their authority to create a trustworthy world atlas. It identifies and examines several key personas that, deployed through atlas texts and portraits, together formed a self-presentation asserting the atlas producer’s cultural authority. As an inquiry into how successful world atlases reveal the changing values of the cultures in which they were produced, sold, and consumed, this study analyzes the self-presentations of four atlas makers of London (Herman Moll, Robert Morden, John Senex, and John Speed) and four Parisian atlas makers (Jean Boisseau, Nicolas de Fer, Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, and Allain Manesson Mallet). Examining atlases published between 1627 and 1721, I demonstrate how atlas compilers created personas advertising not only their geographic knowledge, but also other desirable characteristics and affiliations. After reviewing the intellectual origins of the early modern world atlas, I offer thematic analyses of the three most common personas: the patron’s servant, the artisanal geographic expert, and the scholarly geographic expert. These are followed by a case study of the vivid and layered self-presentation created by Robert Morden. The Conclusions consider the cross-cultural contexts influencing the choices atlas makers faced when presenting themselves to readers. iii The dissertation of Laura Suzanne York is approved. Teofilo F. Ruiz Mary Terrall Arthur L. Little Muriel C. McClendon, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2013 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments viii Biographical Sketch ix 1. Redeeming the Truth: Authority in Early World Atlases 1 London and Paris in the Age of Atlases 12 World Atlases and the Book Market in Seventeenth-Century London and Paris 22 Selling the World Atlas: Three Primary Strategies 32 Approaches and Sources 39 2. The Intellectual Origins of Early World Atlases 50 Precursors of the Seventeenth-Century Atlas 50 The Eternal Earth: Mathematical Geography 73 Wonders, Humans, Time: Descriptive and Chorographical Geographies 79 The Application of Geography 87 Ortelius, Mercator, and the Atlas Family Tree 90 3. “The Merits of One Man Transferr’d upon Another”: the Persona of the Patron’s Servant 113 Self-Presentation in Historical Analysis 115 Book Marketing and Book Piracy 120 Book Piracy and the Credibility Gap 128 The Self-Presentations of World Atlas Compilers 133 The Patron’s Servant 135 Alexis-Hubert Jaillot as Patron’s Servant 141 John Speed as Patron’s Servant 149 Robert Morden as Patron’s Servant 154 Allain Manesson Mallet as Patron’s Servant 156 Nicolas de Fer as Patron’s Servant 162 Jean Boisseau as Patron’s Servant 167 Discussion 170 v 4. Personas of the Geographic Expert 175 Professionalization and Geography in the Seventeenth Century 175 The Artisanal Geographic Expert 179 Robert Morden as Artisanal Expert in Geography Rectified 180 Herman Moll as Artisanal Expert 186 The Scholarly Geographic Expert 195 John Speed’s Portrait: The Atlas Compiler as Scholar 196 Alexis-Hubert Jaillot’s Portrait 197 Allain Manesson Mallet as Scholarly Geographer 203 “Conversant in this Study”: John Senex as Scholarly Geographic Expert 206 Expertise by Labor and Expertise by Scholarship 217 The Devout Geographer: John Speed’s Religious Devotion 222 Discussion 225 5. The Self-Presentation of Robert Morden 234 Morden as Virtuous Tradesman 237 The Honorable Artisan in Early Modern Europe 240 Morden as English Patriot 251 Morden as Geography’s Reluctant Reformer 266 Discussion 287 6. Conclusions: Redemptions of Truth 294 The Identity of the Geographer 300 Sources of Cultural Authority 303 Patronage Values in a Commercial Milieu 306 Comparing English and French Self-Presentations 308 Avenues for Further Research 310 Appendix: Bio-Bibliographies of Principal Atlas Compilers 315 Jean Boisseau 316 Nicolas de Fer 319 Alexis-Hubert Jaillot 322 Allain Manesson Mallet 326 Herman Moll 328 Robert Morden 333 John Senex 337 John Speed 343 Bibliography 346 Table New publications advertised in the English Term Catalogues, 1670-1709 27 vi Figures 1. Title page, Robert Morden’s Geography Rectified (1693)………………………..... 3 2. L’Académie des Sciences, by Sebastien Le Clerc (1698)………………………..…. 16 3. Paris street scene showing Alexis-Hubert Jaillot’s shop………………………..….. 20 4. Seventeenth-century coffeehouse interior……………………………………..…..... 23 5. Title page, Herman Moll’s A System of Geography (1701)…………………….…... 38 6. Ptolemaic world map, from Geographia (Ulm, 1482)……………………………… 52 7. Map of South Asia, from Ptolemy’s Geographia (1584)…………………..………. 54 8. Portrait of Strabo from a sixteenth-century printing of Geographica…………....… 56 9. Portolan by Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus (1490)…………………..…… 59 10. T-O world map from Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (1472)………………..…... 66 11. Monstrous races, from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (1550)…………..……. 68 12. Map of Paris, from Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (1550)………………..….. 68 13. Botanical illustration from Les Singularitéz de la France Antarctique (1558)…..… 70 14. Title page, Edward Wright’s Certaine Errors in Navigation (1610)………..……… 80 15. Portrait of Abraham Ortelius (1570)………………………………………..………. 91 16. Title page, Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570)………………..… 91 17. Portrait of Gerhard Mercator (1574)……………………………………………..…. 101 18. Title page, Gerhard Mercator’s genre-defining Atlas (1595)……………………..... 104 19. Sheet map of the United Provinces, by Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (c. 1710)………...….. 121 20. Subscribers’ coats of arms, in John Senex’s A New General Atlas (1721)…..…….. 124 21. Herman Moll on map piracy, on his Map of Spain & Portugal (1711)……..……… 131 22. Title page, Alexis-Hubert Jaillot’s Atlas nouveau (1689)…………………..………. 144 23. Title page, Alexis-Hubert Jaillot’s Atlas françois (1695)………………………..… 146 24. Portrait of Allain Manesson Mallet (1683)……………………………………..….. 159 25. Title page, Nicolas de Fer’s Atlas curieux (1705)………………………………..... 164 26. Frontispiece, Sir Jonas Moore’s A New System of the Mathematicks (1681)…..….. 188 27. Portrait of John Speed (1631)…………………………………………………..….. 198 28. Portrait of Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (1698)…………………………………………..... 200 29. Source promotion in John Senex’s A New General Atlas (1721)……………..…… 211 30. Motto of the Worshipful Company of Weavers of London……………………..…. 243 31. Title page, Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman (1727)………...….. 246 32. Map of Warwickshire by Robert Morden (1695)……………………………..…… 252 33. Map of Nottinghamshire by Robert Morden (1701)……………………………..... 253 34. A New Map of the English Empire in America by Robert Morden (1721)………… 257 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without generous funding support. The UCLA Department of History provided teaching and research appointments (2001-2002, 2003- 2005) and travel grants (2001, 2005) to support coursework and archival research. In-kind support from the University of Utrecht and a grant from the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies supported language studies in 2002. Much of my archival research was conducted in Paris on a generous fellowship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, with additional funding from the UCLA Office of the Dean, Graduate Division (2002-2003). A readership at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library was supported by the UCLA Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies (2004), and a research grant from the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies enabled research at the British Library (2005). Lastly, conference presentations were made possible by travel support from the American Friends of the JB Harley Research Foundation (2003) and the UCLA Department of History (2006). I have