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	MOLL, Herman (1654-1732) A New Map of Germany, Hungary, Transilvania & the Suisse Cantons, with many Remarks not extant in any map. According to ye newest and most Exact observations London: Moll, Midwinter, and Thomas Bowles , 1712 [but c. 1720]. Engraved with period outline colour. Browning at edges, some small marginal tears. Plate mark: 24 1/8 x 39 3/4 inches. Sheet size: 24 7/8 x 40 7/8 inches. Herman Moll clearly undertook the making of this map of Germany with great enthusiasm. With its portrait of the Diet, it suggests Germany, Austria, Hungary and Eastern Europe as far as the Ottoman Empire as a vast confederation, essentially a parliamentary Holy Roman Empire. The complex array of dominions is laid out on a large scale that is quite readable and generally correct.. Moll offers additional information about many regions by naming the resource primarily associated with it, for example, beer with Hamburg and salt with Trieste. Furthermore, he locates many copper, iron and silver mines. It is also an unabashedly English map of the continent in that it includes the route taken by the great general John Churchill (1650-1722) in the 1704 campaign during the War of the Spanish Succession, noting the battles with, of course, the Battle of Blenheim. The map is dedicated to Marlborough and portrays him on his horse crushing his adversaries. The inset view of "the General Diet of the Empire or Parliament..." endeavors to equate the Electoral College with the English Parliament. Over the doorway is a sign which reads, "The Liberty of Germany". "The Publick Good" and "the Comon Necessity" are two figures standing in the doorway. Within is a large gathering of ecclesiastical and secular princes as well as the nine Electors, the most recent addition to the Electorate being the Elector of Hanover, as of 1692. The Elector of Hanover at the time the map was made was to become George I of Great Britain. The present map was part of Herman Moll's magnificent folio work, a New and Compleat Atlas. Moll was the most important cartographer working in London during his era, a career that spanned over fifty years. His origins have been a source of great scholarly debate; however, the prevailing opinion suggests that he hailed from the Hanseatic port city of Bremen, Germany. Joining a number of his countrymen, he fled the turmoil of the Scanian Wars for London, and in 1678 is first recorded as working there as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas. It was not long before Moll found himself as a charter member of London's most interesting social circle, which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill. It was at this establishment that speculators met to trade equities (most notoriously South Sea Company shares). Moll's coffeehouse circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these friends, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was later conveyed in his cartographic works, some appearing in the works of these same figures. Moll was highly astute, both politically and commercially, and he was consistently able to craft maps and atlases that appealed to the particular fancy of wealthy individual patrons, as well as the popular trends of the day. In many cases, his works are amongst the very finest maps of their subjects ever created with toponymy in the English language. Furthermore, Moll is one of the few mapmakers who merits the term "Innovative". English mapmakers prior to Moll tried to imitate Dutch maps as nearly as possible, whereas Moll seems to have largely disregarded Dutch precedents. Removing all the Baroque stylistic elements, Moll replaced decoration with things that interested him about the places depicted, either pictorially or verbally. And he was right to do so. His notes and illustrations are more interesting than the putti and mythical gods of the late Dutch maps. #20631$1,200.00
	MOLL, Herman (1654-1732) Moscovy, Poland, Little Tartary London: H. Moll, T. & J. Bowles, P. Overton & J. King, [circa 1730]. Copper-engraved map, with original outline colour, in excellent condition. Sheet size: 25 3/4 x 41 inches. Moll's highly decorative map of Russia, dedicated to Czar Peter the Great An imperialist at heart, Herman Moll did little to disguise his admiration for Czar Peter the Great (ruled 1683-1725), to whom this map was dedicated. Peter's aspirations for a greater Russia required access to both the Baltic and Black Seas. By the time this map was conceived, he had secured access to both by hard-won military campaigns over Sweden and the Ottomans. Accordingly, an inset on this map features the new Russian port on the Sea of Asof (Asov), an arm of the Black Sea. The cartouche is a resplendent tribute to Peter, who is depicted in an oval draped with laurels, while above angels and cherubs celebrate his accomplishments, and his vanquished foes wallow below. Moll incorporated new geographical information in this map which came from surveys commissioned by the Czar. The present map was part of Herman Moll's magnificent folio work, a New and Compleat Atlas. Moll was the most important cartographer working in London during his era, a career that spanned over fifty years. His origins have been a source of great scholarly debate; however, the prevailing opinion suggests that he hailed from the Hanseatic port city of Bremen, Germany. Joining a number of his countrymen, he fled the turmoil of the Scanian Wars for London, and in 1678 is first recorded as working there as an engraver for Moses Pitt on the production of the English Atlas. It was not long before Moll found himself as a charter member of London's most interesting social circle, which congregated at Jonathan's Coffee House at Number 20 Exchange Alley, Cornhill. It was at this establishment that speculators met to trade equities (most notoriously South Sea Company shares). Moll's coffeehouse circle included the scientist Robert Hooke, the archaeologist William Stuckley, the authors Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe, and the intellectually-gifted pirates William Dampier, Woodes Rogers and William Hacke. From these friends, Moll gained a great deal of privileged information that was later conveyed in his cartographic works, some appearing in the works of these same figures. Moll was highly astute, both politically and commercially, and he was consistently able to craft maps and atlases that appealed to the particular fancy of wealthy individual patrons, as well as the popular trends of the day. In many cases, his works are amongst the very finest maps of their subjects ever created with toponymy in the English language. Shirley, Maps in the Atlases of the British Library I, T.Moll-4b, 13; Cf. Reinhartz, The Cartographer and the Literati: Herman Moll and his Intellectual Circle #17923$3,500.00
	PTOLEMY, Claudius (90-168 A.D.) Octava Europe Tabula [Rome: Petrus de Turre, 4 November 1490]. Copper-engraved map, in very good condition apart from a repair to the lower right corner, light old dampstain to centre fold, centre fold expertly re-backed. Sheet size: 16 1/8 x 22 inches. A highly important and elegant map from the second edition of the 'Rome Ptolemy' This map is one of the earliest and most important printed maps of Crimea and the Caucasus ever produced, being one of the trapezoidal tabulae, or regional maps of the Classical world, contained in the 1490 Rome edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia. The map embraces the Crimean peninsula, the eastern Black Sea and all of the Caucasus Mountains over into the Caspian Sea. It includes parts of modern Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran. The depiction of the region around the Crimea is geographically well assured, highly detailed with rivers and typonomic details, while the regions on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains are shown to have been something more of a mystery to the Classical mind. Finely engraved ribbons of mountain ranges flow through the centre of the image, marking the boundary between the European and Asian continents. As part of the 1490 'Rome Ptolemy', this map was printed from the same plates used for the first edition of 1478. R.A. Skelton stated that the 1490 edition was issued 'in response to the geographical curiosity aroused by the Portuguese entry into the Indian Ocean', with Bartholemew Diaz's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 (Skelton, p.X), and, appropriately, Christopher Columbus heavily annotated a copy of the 1478 edition. The 'Rome Ptolemy' maps occupy an extremely important place in the history of early printing, and the story of their genesis is most fascinating. It begins with Conrad Swenheym, who is widely thought to have been present at the birth of printing while an apprentice of Johann Guttenberg. After Mainz was sacked in 1462, Swenheym fled south to Italy and arrived at the Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, likely at the suggestion of the great humanist and cartographer Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1464-5, Swenheyn, in partnership with another German émigré, Arnold Pannartz, introduced the first printing press to Italy. Over the next few years, Pope Paul II was to become so enthusiastic about the new medium that he liquidated scriptoria and commissioned several newly established printers to publish vast quantities of religious and humanist texts. In 1467, Swenheym and Pannartz moved to Rome under the Pope's patronage where they printed over fifty books from their press at the Massimi Palace. Unfortunately, when the pope died in 1471, the new pontiff Sixtus IV disavowed the numerous unpaid orders of his predecessor. In this new climate, Swenheym and Pannartz elected to move away from mass printing and to rededicate their efforts to creating the first printed illustrated edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia, a work which was one of the greatest sensations of the Italian renaissance. By 1474 this immensely challenging endeavor was well under way, and Swenheym is recorded as having trained "mathematicians" to engrave maps on copper. They did, however have competition in the form of Taddeo Crivelli of Bologna, who was determined to be the first to the goal, even allegedly poaching one of Swenheym's employees who was privy to the project in Rome. Crivelli raced to complete the project, while Swenheym painstakingly guided the quality of his work, an endeavor slowed by the death of Pannartz in the plague of 1476. Crivelli's work was finally published on June 29th, 1477, making it the first printed Cosmography and the first ever set of engraved maps. Swenheym died in 1477, and the project was taken up by Arnold Buckinck, originally from Cologne, who saw the project to completion on October 10, 1478. While it may not have been the first printed edition, Rodney Shirley notes that 'The copper plates engraved at Rome ... [were] much superior in clarity and craftsmanship to those of the 1477 Bologna edition ... Many consider the Rome plates to be the finest Ptolemaic plates produced until Gerard Mercator engraved his classical world atlas in 1578' (Shirley p.3). Swenheym's close supervision of his engravers saw that 'The superior craftsmanship of the engraved maps in the Rome edition, by comparison with those of the [1477] Bologna edition, is conspicuous and arresting. The cleanliness and precision with which the geographical details are drawn; the skill with which the elements of the map are arranged according to their significance, and the sensitive use of the burin in working the plates - these qualities ... seem to point to the hand of an experienced master, perhaps from North Italy' (Skelton, p.VIII). A number of authorities have suggested a principal engraver from either Venice or Ferrara. Another aspect of these maps which stands out is the fine Roman letters used for the place names on the plates. In an apparently unique experiment, these letters were not engraved with a burin but punched into the printing plate using metal stamps or dies. These fine prints represent a milestone in the medium, being some of the earliest successful intaglio engravings, quite apart from their undeniable cartographic importance. While the artists who carried out Swenheym's vision will likely never be known, they produced the most important and artistically virtuous printed maps of the fifteenth-century. Upon the publication of the Rome Ptolemy, a frustrated Crivelli saw potential clients abandon his edition in favour of its superior rival. Petrus de Turre (Pietro de la Torre) purchased these same plates and on November 4th, 1490 first used them to print a second Rome edition, of which this map was a part. The plates had remained in excellent condition and the original sharpness and quality was preserved. This map remains one of the most historically important and visually striking images of the Crimea and the Caucasus available to collectors. Cf. BMC IV, p.133; Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, pp.131-133; Destombes, Catalogue des Cartes gravées au XVe siècle, 41(1); cf. Goff, P-1086; cf. Hain, 13541; Indice Generale, 8128; cf. Klebs, Incunabula, 812.7; cf. Proctor, 3966; cf. Sabin, Ptolemy, 66474; cf. Sander, 5976; Shirley, The Mapping of the World, 4; cf. Skelton, Claudius Ptolomaeus Cosmographia Rome 1478, p.XIII; cf. Stevens, Ptolemy's Geography, 42; cf. Stilwell, P-992 #18303$6,500.00
	PTOLEMY, Claudius (90-168 A.D.) Quinta Europe Tabula [Rome: Petrus de Turre, 4 November 1490]. Copper-engraved map of the Balkans and the Adriatic, in very good condition apart from small repairs to the lower corners, an old repair to the lower blank area of the centre fold and some surface abrasions with a little loss to the centre fold. Sheet size: 16 1/8 x 22 inches. A highly important and elegant map from the second edition of the 'Rome Ptolemy' This map is one of the earliest and most important printed maps of the region embracing the Balkans, Albania and the Adriatic, being one of the trapezoidal tabulae, or regional maps of the Classical world, contained in the 1490 Rome edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia. The image embraces modern day Albania, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, and most of the Adriatic Sea, including part of the opposing Italian coastline. This map is also fascinating as one of the last representations of the region to be published before the advent of modern surveying techniques that would dramatically modify the depiction of the region. Geographically, the depiction is somewhat curious, as the coastlines are quite abstracted from their true form, and the region's actual complex topography is simplified into a neat line of mountains. As part of the 1490 'Rome Ptolemy', this map was printed from the same plates used for the first edition of 1478. R.A. Skelton stated that the 1490 edition was issued 'in response to the geographical curiosity aroused by the Portuguese entry into the Indian Ocean', with Bartholemew Dias's rounding of the Cape of Good Hope in 1488 (Skelton, p.X), and appropriately Christopher Columbus heavily annotated a copy of the 1478 edition. The 'Rome Ptolemy' maps occupy an extremely important place in the history of early printing, and the story of their genesis is most fascinating. It begins with Conrad Swenheym, who is widely thought to have been present at the birth of printing while an apprentice of Johann Guttenberg. After Mainz was sacked in 1462, Swenheym fled south to Italy and arrived at the Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, likely at the suggestion of the great humanist and cartographer Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. In 1464-5, Swenheyn, in partnership with another German émigré, Arnold Pannartz, introduced the first printing press to Italy. Over the next few years, Pope Paul II was to become so enthusiastic about the new medium that he liquidated scriptoria and commissioned several newly established printers to publish vast quantities of religious and humanist texts. In 1467, Swenheym and Pannartz moved to Rome under the Pope's patronage where they printed over fifty books from their press at the Massimi Palace. Unfortunately, when the pope died in 1471, the new pontiff Sixtus IV disavowed the numerous unpaid orders of his predecessor. In this new climate, Swenheym and Pannartz elected to move away from mass printing and to rededicate their efforts to creating the first printed illustrated edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia, a work which was one of the greatest sensations of the Italian renaissance. By 1474 this immensely challenging endeavor was well under way, and Swenheym is recorded as having trained "mathematicians" to engrave maps on copper. They did, however have competition in the form of Taddeo Crivelli of Bologna, who was determined to be the first to the goal, even allegedly poaching one of Swenheym's employees who was privy to the project in Rome. Crivelli raced to complete the project, while Swenheym painstakingly guided the quality of his work, an endeavor slowed by the death of Pannartz in the plague of 1476. Crivelli's work was finally published on June 29th, 1477, making it the first printed Cosmography and the first ever set of engraved maps. Swenheym died in 1577, and the project was taken up by Arnold Buckinck, originally from Cologne, who saw the project to completion on October 10, 1478. While it may not have been the first printed edition, Rodney Shirley notes that 'The copper plates engraved at Rome ... [were] much superior in clarity and craftsmanship to those of the 1477 Bologna edition ... Many consider the Rome plates to be the finest Ptolemaic plates produced until Gerard Mercator engraved his classical world atlas in 1578' (Shirley p.3). Swenheym's close supervision of his engravers saw that 'The superior craftsmanship of the engraved maps in the Rome edition, by comparison with those of the [1477] Bologna edition, is conspicuous and arresting. The cleanliness and precision with which the geographical details are drawn; the skill with which the elements of the map are arranged according to their significance, and the sensitive use of the burin in working the plates - these qualities ... seem to point to the hand of an experienced master, perhaps from North Italy' (Skelton, p.VIII). A number of authorities have suggested a principal engraver from either Venice or Ferrara. Another aspect of these maps which stands out is the fine Roman letters used for the place names on the plates. In an apparently unique experiment, these letters were not engraved with a burin but punched into the printing plate using metal stamps or dies. These fine prints represent a milestone in the medium, being some of the earliest successful intaglio engravings, quite apart from their undeniable cartographic importance. While the artists who carried out Swenheym's vision will likely never be known, they produced the most important and artistically virtuous printed maps of the fifteenth-century. Upon the publication of the Rome Ptolemy, a frustrated Crivelli saw potential clients abandon his edition in favour of its superior rival. Petrus de Turre (Pietro de la Torre) purchased these same plates and on November 4th, 1490 first used them to print a second Rome edition, of which this map was a part. The plates had remained in excellent condition and the original sharpness and quality was preserved. This map remains one of the most historically important and visually striking images of the Baltic and Adriatic region available to collectors. Cf. BMC IV, p.133; Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, pp.131-133; Destombes, Catalogue des Cartes gravées au XVe siècle, 41(1); cf. Goff, P-1086; cf. Hain, 13541; Indice Generale, 8128; cf. Klebs, Incunabula, 812.7; cf. Proctor, 3966; cf. Sabin, Ptolemy, 66474; cf. Sander, 5976; Shirley, The Mapping of the World, 4; cf. Skelton, Claudius Ptolomaeus Cosmographia Rome 1478, p.XIII; cf. Stevens, Ptolemy's Geography, 42; cf. Stilwell, P-992 #18300$8,500.00
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