Decorative Printed Maps of the 15th to 18th Centuries

Spring Books, London, 1967 reprint of 1965 third impression. Cloth, large 4to,. vii, 80 pp, 84 plates (chiefly maps, 12 in colour). This book "provides a survey of maps printed from copper plates or wood-blocks between the 15th and 18th centuries. In these four centuries, from the birth of map-printing to the eve of scientific cartography, the printed map was the chief vehicle of popular geographical ideas. It was also, and still is, a source of visual pleasure. The early map-maker's deficiencies of knowledge and technique encouraged him to exercise his sense of fitness in design and his ingenuity in the decoration of his work. The design of his maps was controlled no less by the tools and processes used in engraving and printing them than by the public for whom they were made and by the commercial channels through which they were circulated. These topics have received little notice in most gencral works on cartography and they are given special attention in this volume. The 86 reproductions, 12 of which are in full colour, serve as a specimen book to illustrate the development of map-design and decoration. Of these reproductions 22 are new to this work, the remainder having been published in A. L. Humphreys' Old Decorative Maps and Charts (1926). The text, by Mr R. A. Skelton, is entirely new and comprises an Introduction, a General Bibliography, and eight chapters dealing with the successive phases or national schools of map-making. The Introduction describes the techniques used for engraving and printing maps, the history of the map-trade, the development of the symbols, lettering, decoration and colouring of maps, some problems in the dating and study of engraved maps, their mortality, and the history of map-collecting. Each of the chapters that follow is associated with one group of plates and includes a short essay on it, a select bibliography, and notes on each of the plates. Although geographically the scope of the work is world-wide, in the text and the choice of new illustrations special prominence has been given to English maps, since these may be expected to have particular interest for readers in the English-speaking world." from the blurb. Contents slightly agetoned, otherwise Good in a torn and creased dustwrapper.