Mercator - Atlas Major + Minor


Westmorlandia,Lancastria,Cestria, Caernarvan, Denbich, Flint, Merionidth, Montgomery, Salopia. Cum Insulis Mania et Anglesey - 1595
[Atlas Major - 3rd part]
360mm x 415mm
Mercator - Westmorelandia etc 1636
Westmorlandia,Lancastria,Cestria .. cum Insulis Mania et Anglesey - 1636
[Atlas Major - 2nd state of plate]
Hondius 1607
Westmorland, [Lan]castria, Cestria etc
[?from Atlas Minor/Hondius]
135mm x 180mm
The text on the back indicates from a Latin Edition
Mercator(Cloppenburg) - Westmorelandia etc 1607
Westmorlandia, Lancastria, Cestria .. cum Insulis Mania et Anglesey - 1632
[from Atlas Minor/ Cloppenburg]
190mm x 255mm

Loppenbug - 2nd state
Westmorlandia, Lancastria, Cestria .. cum Insulis Mania et Anglesey
190mm x 255mm
(a later state with sea stippling removed ?1673)

Janson 1628
Northumbria, Cumberlandia, Dunelmessis episc, Westmorlandia, et Mania Ins. - 1628
140mm x 196mm
The text on reverse indicates from a German edition
 

The Island appeared on the single sheet map of the British Isles - these maps Westmorelandia etc covering North Wales and North West England first appeared in the third part of Mercator's Atlas added in 1595 being one of 16 maps relating to British Isles - the representation of the Island like all other English regional maps is derived from Saxon's wall map of 1585 - this first state was used in all editions of the atlas with Latin or French text upto the 1633 editions (see Koeman for full details) - in 1636 a new English text edition was produced in which the map was considerably altered in that the representation of the Island was now based on the newer map by Speed (the cartouche and Mercator's signature and privilege are also removed.

The smaller plate, a reduced form of the larger map, was produced for the Atlas minor Geraardi Mercatoris .. produced by Hondius in 1607 - these with Latin, French or German texts went through 9 editions to 1621 when the plates were acquired by English booksellers and used up to 1639.

Another version was produced for a new edition of the Atlas Minor published by John Cloppenbug in three editions 1630 (French), 1632 (Latin) and 1636 (French) - probably engraved by Peter Keer - the page imprint above map is Angliae III Tabula - the page number (75) and Latin text on reverse indicate from the 1632 edition.. The plates were then bought by Jansson whose successor Joannes Janssonius van Waesberghe reprinted them in a final edition of 1673(without text) - it would appear that the sea stippling was removed - that illustrated is blank and on a larger sheet.

Jan Jansson had a new series of plates engraved for his 1628 edition of the Atlas Minor and were used in various editions up to 1651 - the Northumbria map shows the complete IoM updated with with the Speed representation; the Lancastria map in this series shows only the southern part of the Island.


Isle of Man from state 1 of Mercator

References

Skelton - pp 220/230


 Index

   

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor
HTML Transcription © F.Coakley , 2012