Topography, Cartography, Nautica

Atlases are by no means the only printed works in which we encounter cartographic and topographical material. Descriptions of countries and cities, travelogues, and historical works may also contain such material. The Rara holdings also include several publications whose texts and illustrations are devoted to shipping, shipbuilding, hydraulics, and related technologies.

Zh 310-3880/5 raro IX

Digital version

 

 

 

 

 

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Benedetto Bordone (ca. 1460–1531) was a Venetian cartographer and publisher of land and sea charts. His Isolario, a geographical, historical and cultural description of the islands of the Mediterranean, was first published in 1528. He was the first to describe the discoveries in South and North America, and the book also contains the earliest known printed account of the conquest of Peru. Of particular interest are the 12 woodcut maps of America, as well as the earliest map printed in Europe showing Japan as an island.

Zh 500-1470 raro VI

Digital version

 

 

 

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The Augsburg engraver, cartographer, and publisher Tobias Conrad Lotter (1717–1777) published a small atlas around 1762, which was originally intended as a landscape format, but was bound as a portrait format in the Hertziana copy. The work was probably also published at the same time in another version with a detailed index in German, whose title Kurzgefasste Geographie, in sich halten einen aneinander hangenden Entwurf aller Theile des bevohnten Erdbodens, nebst compendieusen Landcharten, vvelche ein kleiner Sack- Atlas ausmachen refers to it as a “pouch book”, and thus highlights its transportability and usability. The maps are colored and make evident the respective areas together with their political borders.

Zh 300-3500 raro I

Digital version