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14 ALTEA GALLERY
19 BLAEU, Willem Janszoon.
Unrecorded carte-à-figures map of the world
Orbis Terrarum Tipus De Integro Multis In Locis Emendatus auct: G. Iansonio.
Bologna, Francesco Sabatini?, dated 1655 but c.1670, 440 x 750mm.
£50,000
A splendid and extremely rare carte-à-figures map of the World, engraved by Pietro Todeschi. The world is drawn in two hemispheres at the centre
surrounded by a wealth of decorative detail. Australia is connected to New Guinea and a great Southern landmass and entitled “Terra Australis
Incognita”, and a northwest passage is shown through the Straits of Anian.
This is a hitherto unrecorded pirate copy of Willem Blaeu’s map of the world, probably taken from the intermediate Italian piracy recorded by
Shirley. It was probably published by Francesco Sabatini, one of the many fringe figures in Italian map-publishing in the late seventeenth century.
Unfortunately characters are so shadowy that we do not have accurate dates for his life and death, and often the only clues to dating his work are
the dedications on the maps. He was apparently active as a printer, publisher and possibly engraver in the 1670s, probably in Bologna. Although this
World map bears a Venetian address (only partially legible) it seems plausible that this is spurious.
cf. SHIRLEY “The mapping of the World” No. 333, Plate 253 for the intermediate piracy.; Klaus Stopp, ‘Drie Karten von Francesco Sabatini’, Mappæ Antiquæ Liber
Amicorum Günter Schilder, p.281-285.
S/N: 10523
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