Tuscia

Map of Tuscany prepared by Gerard Mercator for his Italia, Sclavoniae et Graeciae tabula geographicae (Duisburg, 1589), which includes an allegorical frontispiece and 22 maps of Italy, the Balkans and Greece.

Later, the maps are reprinted in the Atlantis Pars Altera (1595) published posthumously after the death of Mercator, by the Duisburg printer Albert Buys, under the supervision of his son Rumold Mercator. Composed of six parts - published separately between 1589 and 1594 - it includes 107 maps, all except Rumold's map of the world, made by Gerard Mercator.

The plates were then purchased by Jodocus Hondius, who between 1606 and 1630 used them for his Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi, integrating and updating them with his own "new" maps. Of Mercator's maps are also known reprints edited by Johannes Janssonius. The Hondius and Janssonius editions had a great commercial success and were printed in several languages, with the text on the back of the map in Latin, French, German and Dutch.

The map is engraved with the typical connotations of Mercatorian work. The mountains are aligned in a mountainous area concept, not to indicate true chains or valleys, and have a structure with some differences in size, but similar in shape, with vertical slopes and flat tops. The cities are shown through more or less large castles characterized by slender and pointed roofs, similar to wizard hats.

Example from the Frech edition of Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi by Hondius-

Copper engraving, original colouring, in good condition.

Bibliografia

cfr. Koeman II Me 11 e Koeman II Me 13A, 1595); Van der Krogt 1:002; J. Keuning, The History of an Atlas, in “Imago Mundi” IV (1947) pp. 37-43; World Encompassed p. 134