Italiae-covensmortier-1721
$1,000.00
Title
1721 (undated)
1 : 2400000
Description
This is an attractive and scarce map of Italy, engraved c. 1680 by Frederik De Wit, but updated in 1721 by the Amsterdam publishers Covens and Mortier. Covens and Mortier added many place names and included the post road system first introduced on a 1695 map of Italy by Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola. The map covers the Italian Peninsula in its entirety including the Dalmatian coast, at the time controlled by the Republic of Venice, as well as the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and part of Sicily. As with virtually every map of Italy produced in the seventeenth century, De Wit follows the model established by Magini s monumental 1608
1570 (undated)
1 : 20000000
Description
A richly-colored example of Ortelius seminal map of Tartary, this is one of the first maps to focus on the North Pacific. While the map is primarily intended to detail Asia as dominated by the Great Khan, it is also notable for what it shows of America. The map includes what is now the west coast of the United States, northwestern Canada and Alaska, bit was then almost entirely unknown lands. It is the earliest obtainable map to name California. It also displays a strait separating Asia and America - the Strait of Asian - appearing long before the existence of such a strait was proved by discovery. The map is based on a partial conic projection, and depicts from the Black Sea to the Gulf of California, and from the Arctic to southern China, what Europeans then considered the extent of the Tartar Kingdom. In fact, much of the content north of China is mythical or loosely derived from the journals of Marco Polo, the legend
Description
This is an 1865 American Civil War manuscript letter and map of Fort Powhatan, Virginia, written by Abraham Slack, a member of the 38th Regiment, New Jersey Infantry. Consisting of three handwritten pages and a map on a single folded sheet. Slack wrote the letter to his son, John William Slack (1850 - c. 1910). In the letter, Slack describes Fort Powhatan in detail, expresses sympathy for desperate condition of the Confederate forces (and families) across the river, details recent military actions, and advises his son on matters of household management.
The MapThe map is oriented toward the northeast with James River filling the upper half. Wilson s Landing, the site of an important battle at the beginning of the 1864 Overland Campaign, is labeled in the upper right. Fort Powhatan or Fort Pocahontas, situated forty-five feet above the river, overlooks the James from the south. Within the fort, Slack identifies the battery, magazine, company living quarters, the captain
Muscovy-ortelius-1570
$2,500.00
Title
Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae Descriptio. Auctore Antonio Ienkensono Anglo, edita Londini Anno. 1562 et dedicata illustriss: D. Henrico Sÿdneo Wallie presidi.
1570 (undated)
1 : 12000000
This is a 1601 example of Abraham Ortelius Russia, Moscoviae et Tartariae , the first atlas map of Russia, and the first to be produced based on actual exploration. Its content is based on the travels of English merchant and diplomat Anthony Jenkinson, who visited Russia four times between 1557 and 1571. The map shows the lands revealed by Jenkinson s first voyage which lasted from 1557 to 1560. His map, which was provided to Ortelius, was completed after that voyage, in 1562.
The Map Ortelius map spans from Latvia, Lithuania and the Black Sea in the west to the Ob River and the Syr Darya in the East. The south limits of the map are marked by the Caspian Sea and the Amu Darya River (Oxus, here spelled