Thank you for your fine internet publication.  I greatly enjoyed your article on Richard Blome.  I wonder if you have any additional information on the two maps in the History of the New Testament.  Are they Blome's work or that of another mapmaker? Is this their first publication?  Any information or source of information on these maps which you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Mark Moss

The Editor: Maps in Bibles have a long history before Richard Blome.  The first Bible maps date from the 1520s, and are principally associated with the Protestant movement. This early period is described by Betty Ingram and Catherine Delano-Smith in their 'Maps in Bibles'.  The majority of these maps are simple woodcuts.  The standard group are: map of Paradise, map of the Exodus, map of Israel divided among the Tribes, a map of Canaan at about the time of Jesus, a plan of Jerusalem at about the time of Jesus, and a map of the travels of St. Paul and the other Apostles.  A big change occurred in 1590 with the publication of a Dutch Bible, printed by Gilles Roomen, Haarlem, for Laurens Jacobsz in Amsterdam.  It contained seven elaborate maps, drawn by Petrus Plancius, a promient theologian and cartographer.  These maps were engraved by Baptist van Deutecum, and are the finest series of Bible maps I know of.  At very much the same time, Abraham Ortelius included a very decorative map of the Travels of St. Paul in his 'Pareregon'.  Together these maps established a new standard of decoration.  In 1646 Claes Jansz. Visscher published a set of six Bible maps (although, it is possible that he merely copied an existing set, as two or three other publishers issued similar sets in the mid-1640's).  These maps were to establish a standard format for Bible maps, that was copied for the rest of the century, and into the righteenth century, and many of these were credited to Visscher.  Blome's maps are simply a copy of Visscher's maps, but probably based on an intermediate series.  As far as I know, the set were first published by Blome in 1688, the date on the title-page, and then re-issued in subsequent editions to about 1705.

I am wondering if you could possibly give any information on this map-maker. I have recently come into possesion of a number of maps. One of which is an un-coloured map of Europe with a small cartouche with these words:- " Lumen Histoiarum per Occidentem. Fran. Haraet ex conatibus antuerpiae. Have you any information that you can share on Fran. Haraet.
Many thanks for your help.

Ian Turner

The Editor: Frans van Haren [more commonly called Haraeus] was born circa 1555 and died in 1631. He flourished between about 1615 and 1624, in Antwerp.  He was a theologian, historian, globemaker and mapmaker.  Two of his maps appeared in the 1624 edition of Abraham Ortelius's '... Theatri Orbis Pareregon ...', a classical atlas, published by Balthasar Moretus:  1. 'Lumen Historiarum Per Orientem ... Concinn. Fran. Hareio ...'  2. 'Lumen Historiarum Per Occidentem Ex Conatibus Fran. Haraei Antverpiae.'  Later copies of these maps appeared in Georg Horn's classical atlas, published in Amsterdam in 1652; these later plates were engraved by Pieter van den Keere, whose signature (Petrus Kaerius Celavit) can be seen near the centre of the lower border.

 

I have undertaken a project to trace the early history of map dealers focused on American Maps prior to 1970. My understanding is that the four American dealers that focused on American maps were Ken Nebenzahl, Thomas MacDonald (Henry Stevens,  Son and Stiles), Harry Shaw Newman (Old Print Shop), and B. Altman's (Rosejeane Slifer). They purchased the bulk of their material from RV Tooley at Francis Edwards.

Prior to 1970, were there British and Dutch dealers that put out catalogues focused on the Western hemisphere? And if so, how might I be able to obtain copies of their catalogues?

Mike Hirsch

The Editor: Although it would be unusual for a UK dealer to issue a catalogue devoted to the Americas, the the principal catalogue-issuers were Weinreb & Douwma, P.J. Radford and Francis Edwards.  All these firms are, sadly, now defunct and their catalogues rarely turn up.

The Piri Reis Map is in Topkapi Palace, Istanbul; and not in the National Library, Ankara (letter to editor, issue 9). The Topkapi Palace gift shop was selling a reproduction of the map when IMCoS met in Istanbul last year.  Perhaps it is still available.

John W. Docktor
 

The Editor: Thanks for correcting my false assumption.