Western Hemisphere

Scarce map of the Western Hemisphere, published by EW Happel in Ulm.

From "Mundus Mirabilis". It contatins a description of America and describes and dating the manners and customs of the inhabitants.

Happel's map shows an incomplete New Zealand, California as an Island on the Briggs model, The straits of Anian and a very nascent and oddly shaped Mississippi River. The Rio Grande is still shown flowing into the Gulf of California. The Straits of Anian are named, with a very promising course for the Northwest Pasasge. Only a single massive Great Lake is shown, with a direct connection with the St. Lawrence River. South America is in an extra wide configuration.

The allegorical representations of the 4 continents are male figures, a very unusual departure from the normal convention of representing the continents in the female form.

Map engraved by Heinrich Irsinger, an obscure German engraver from Ulm. The Western Hemisphere features California as an island with the coastline of Anian to the northeast of the island. In the South Pacific, New Zealand's western coastline is depicted as well as a group of Polynesian islands. In South America, the mythical Lago de los Xarayes is shown at the center of the continent.  According to Shirley the map appeared in Happel's Mundus Mirabilis (1687) and Historia Moderna Europae (1692) and may have been included in other works published by Matthaeus Wagner.

Eberhard Werner Happel (August 12, 1647 - May 15, 1690 ) was a German author, novelist, journalist and polymath. Though little is known of his education and apprenticeship, he was a prolific author whose works shared freely the qualities of both fiction and nonfiction. He was adept at the inclusion and elucidation of contemporary knowledge in his many works, thus providing his readers with novel scientific and political ideas in the context of his novels.

“In 1687, in Ulm, Eberhard Werner Happel published a work entitled Mundus Mirabilis. It contains a description of America and describes the manners and customs of the inhabitants. It is illustrated with an earlier world map by Happel dating from 1675 and another engraved world map in two sheets. It is not feasible to identify the western hemisphere as being part of a world map so it is included in this study. The map is derived from the earlier Philipp Clüver plate engraved by H. Mosting published in Wolfenbüttel, 1661. Similarly it omits any reference to New England, which is present in the alternate plate published Johannis Bunonis in the same year 1661. NIEV NEDERLAND still dominates the region. Because of the meridian it appears that virtually the entire West Indian islands were erased although some of the toponyms still appear.

The spandrels are decorated with simple engravings of the native peoples of the four continents. That representing Europe in the lower right-hand corner is holding upright an oar bearing the inscribed letters PW CPF, the meaning of which is yet to be deduced. Below this is the inscription of the little-known engraver Heinrich Irsinger; its date has been read by some incorrectly as 1684. Top centre is the pagination Pag. i.

The plate was utilised in another work by Happel entitled Historia Moderna Europae and published in Ulm in 1692. A continuation was published in 1700 which omits any plates. Johann Zahn published a similar work entitled Mundus Mirabili in Nuremberg in 1696. It, too, contained a two sheet hemispherical map of the world. The western hemisphere is derived from the Happel although the spandrels are more ornate and professionally engraved.” (Burden " The Mapping of North America II", p. 298).

Copperplate with fine later hand colour, good condition.

Bibliografia:

Burden "The Mapping of North America II", p. 298, n. 627; McLaughlin & Mayo n. 92; Shirley (Corrigenda and Addenda) #535A; Shirley (Map Collector #64) p. 4.