MERCATOR, Gerard Kremer (? – 1594). / WAESBERGE, Jan Jansson van (fl. 1661 – 81) / SAUZET, Henri du. (fl. 1734 – 39)

[Amsterdam, 1676] “Mappa Aestivarum Infularum alias Barmudas dictarum , ad oftia Mexiane eaftuarij jacenium in latitudine Graduum 32 Minutorum 25. Ab Anglia, Londino Scilicet versus Libonotum 3300 Miliaribus Anglicanis, et a Roanoak (qui locus est in Virginia) verfus Euronotum 500 Mill. accurate defcr.”

From: “Atlas Portatif. “ by Henri du Sauzet ca. 1734

Condition

Minor spotting and some errant fold lines, otherwise very good.

Measurements

Map to the neat line: 18.5 x 25.5 cm.

Map full page (including margins): 22 x 26 cm.

Map to the neat line: 7.3 x 10 in.

Map full page (including margins): 8.7 x 10.2 in.

General comments on this map

Margaret Palmer notes late issues of this map in Joannes van Waesbergen’s reissue of the “Atlas Minor” in Latin in 1673 and in Dutch in 1676. There is no mention of a French edition, although the page title above the map ("Description des Isles Bermudas") and the French text on the reverse of the page suggests such an edition was published. Burden explains when he makes note of  Jan Jansson van Waesberge’s maps being used in the “Atlas Portatif” by Henri du Sauzet of 1734.

In most instances cartographers did not always have the time, inclination or ability to visit and/or considerably revise each geographic area depicted in his maps of the various parts of the world, hence the John Speed, Willem Blaeu, Henricus Hondius, Joannes Janssonius, Mercator, John Ogilby, Schenk & Valk, all share considerable similarities in visual display.

The format of the Mercator map is smaller and it varies in certain noteworthy ways from the 1626 prototype John Speed map (from which most of the above-mentioned map-makers derived considerable inspiration). Having said this the whole look and feel of the map is in this seventeenth century tradition of borrowing information from more or less one source. The map is superimposed over a map of the Atlantic with the coastlines of Britain, North America and Hispaniola showing the location of Bermuda. There is no central cartouche above the central map of Bermuda which might otherwise have held the map-title and instead is replaced by a simple compass-rose in the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda is not divided into “Tribes” or “Shares” illustrating land-owners or proprietors acreage of land-holdings after the discovery in 1609. The title is engraved in an oblong tablet-like embellished cartouche centre-right. There is a scale of miles lower left and upper left.

Biography

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 favor with the Emperor he was caught up in the persecution of Lutheran Potestants 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 honour 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.

Van Waesbergen, established as a bookseller in Amsterdam, acquired by inheritance from his father-in-law Jan Jansson many of Jansson's plates including those of the “Atlas Minor”, the “Civitates Orbis Terrarum” and the “Atlas of the Antique World.”

These works were republished by him, or after his death in 1681 by his son, also named Johannes. For a time he was associated with Moses Pitt in the abortive attempt in 1680 – 81 to publish an English version of the major atlases by Blaeu and Jansson.

Sources

“The Mapping of Bermuda: A Bibliography of Printed Maps & Charts, 1547-1970“ by Margaret Palmer.  Third Revised Edition.  Edited by R. V. Tooley.  Copyright © 1983 The Holland Press Limited.  Published in 1988 by Nicholas Lusher.