1691 – V. M. Coronelli – Mare Del Nord

Titles:           “Mare del Nord. Auttore il P. M. Coronelli M. C., Cosmografo della Serenissima Republica di Venetia. Dedicato all’Ill.mo et Ecc.mo Sig. il Sig. Giovanni Grimani, Savio di Terra Ferma”
(The North Sea, by Father Coronelli, Minorite, Cosmographer of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, dedicated to the Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord Giovanni Grimani, Minister for the Mainland)

Description:

A large and decorative chart of the North Atlantic by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, from his Atlante Veneto, published in Venice in 1691. “Mare del Nord” is the old name for the Atlantic, the “North Sea” of the Spanish navigators, as opposed to the Pacific, the “Mare del Sud”, which appears in the lower left. The ocean is criss-crossed with rhumb lines radiating from compass roses, in the style of a sea chart.

The chart runs from Greenland, Iceland and Hudson Strait in the north to Brazil and the Gulf of Guinea in the south. It takes in the whole of the Atlantic between the Americas and the coasts of Europe and Africa:

• North America: New France, with Quebec and the St Lawrence; Virginia and Carolina; and New Sweden (“N. Svecia”) on the Delaware.
• The Caribbean: the Gulf of Mexico, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and the Windward Islands.
• South America: Terra Firma and Brazil.
• Europe and Africa: Ireland, Spain and the coast of Africa, with the Azores, Canaries and Cape Verde Islands, the Gambia and the Niger, Sierra Leone and Timbuktu.

The notes on the chart are full of history and legend:

• The Zeno legend: Labrador is labelled “Estotiland, ò Tierra de Laborador, scoperta da Antonio Zeno N. Veneto nel 1390”, discovered by the Venetian nobleman Antonio Zeno in 1390. The story of the Zeno brothers’ voyages was first published in Venice in 1558 and was a point of Venetian pride. Historians now regard it as largely invented.
• The cod fishery: a note above the Grand Banks of Newfoundland records that many nations come to fish for cod there between April and July.
• Legendary islands: the mythical Atlantic island of St Brendan (“S. Borondon”) is marked but noted as “believed to be fabulous”.
• Other features: the Sargasso Sea (“Mar di Sargasso”) and Bermuda.
• The Amazon: a note describes its three mouths and warns that the outer two are dangerous because of the tidal bore.
• The prime meridian: a dashed line marks it through the westernmost part of the Isle of Ferro in the Canaries.

The title is framed by sugar cane, the great crop of the Caribbean. Two tritons rise from the sea at its foot and hold up the arms of the dedicatee, Giovanni Grimani, a member of one of Venice’s leading patrician families.

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650–1718) was a Franciscan friar and one of the great mapmakers of the Baroque. He made the celebrated giant globes for Louis XIV and founded the Accademia degli Argonauti, the first geographical society.

 

Cartographer:            Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718)

Sheet size:                   48,0 x 65,7 cm

Year:                             1691

Technique:               copper engraving

Reference:                Burden 679; Shirley, Maps in the Atlases of the British Library, T.CORO-7a, no. 20

 

Condition:
Very good condition. Beautiful hand coloring. Watermarked paper.

This is an original antique map published in 1691 and NOT a modern copy or reprint

 

On your request I will provide a Certificate of Authenticity