Sophianos was well known as an expert on Greek history and geography. He was sent to Greece in about 1543 by Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the Spanish envoy to Venice, to acquire Greek manuscripts for the Escurial Library. It is about this time – possibly in 1540, the date found at the end of Sophianos text on this map – that Sophianus compiled his great map of Greece, although there is no surviving example.
In 1544, Johann Oporinus, a printer and publisher in Basle, published an eight-sheet version of Sophianos map, cut by Master Christoph of Strasburg. Of this earliest printing, there is also no known extant example. Indeed, the earliest surviving printing of the map recorded by Zacharakis or Karrow was printed by Johann Schroeter in Basle in 1601.
It appears that Oporinus reprinted the map in 1545 to accompany his edition of Gerbelius “In Descriptionem Graeciae Sophiani, Praefatio….”. Although the book gives instructions on colouring the map, and contains additional gazetteer, the map seems not to ha...
Bland arbeten.
Descriptio nova totivs Graeciae per Nicolavm Sophianvm. Basle, 1544-1545, large woodcut wall-map of Greece, on eight sheets uncut, each sheet approx. 380 x 280mm., with an additional sheet with letterpress gazetteer. Of great rarity. The earliest surviving wall-map of Greece and the first significant modern map of Greece, compiled by Nickolaos Sophianos, a Greek cartographer from Corfu, born of a noble family there. This example is apparently the second state of the map. It retains the date 1544 just above the scale bar on the bottom right hand skeet, but the letterpress text in the left hand cartouche on the lower left sheet may have been reset, in whole or part, as it ends with the date “prid[ie] Calend[is]. Septembr[is]. Anno salutis publiae M D X L V”.
Sotheby's. Zacharakis, Printed Maps of Greece: Sophianos 2242; Karrow, Mapmakerers of the Sixteenth Century, 71/1.2.
Bland arbeten.
Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire universel raisonné des connaissances humaines.
Fransk ingenjör och geograf under slutet av 1700-talet. Han gav 1765 ut 'Tableau périodique du monde, ou la Géographie raisoneé et critique', 1766 'Atlas général, civil et ecclésiastique', samt under åren som följde en rad andra atlaser och geografiska verk. Hans sista verk, 'Atlas géographique et statistique de la France' utkom 1803.
Bland arbeten.
Tableau périodique du monde, ou la Géographie raisoneé et critique.
Atlas général, civil et ecclésiastique.
Atlas géographique et statistique de la France.
Nouv. biogr. gen.
Stockholm - Mentzer ca 1860.
'Hispaniae...' - L. Euler 1760.
"Short notice about the Covens et Mortier edition of de l'Isle's map of America."
Covers the continent of North America from the Baffin Bay southwards as far as the Spanish Main, westwards to Cape Mendocino, and eastwards to include the Azores and the Sargasso Sea.
Cartographically this map is practically identical to De L’Isle’s map though the title cartouche has been moved to the upper left quadrant and the mile scales to the upper right with a new curtain motif frame. Tooley, in his Mapping of America considers this to be a foundational map and indeed it is one of the most influential maps to emerge from the De L’Isle workshop.
Some consider this map to be one of the first to revert California to a peninsular state following the insular suppositions of the late 17th and early 18th centuries. However, this may be a misreading of the map. De L’Isle leaves the northern terminus of the Gulf of California open such that, though the form of California is suggestive of a peninsular state, should exploration prove the opposite, the cartographer was covered. On the west coast of California a false bay is notated though this may simply be a double mapping of the entrance to the Gulf of California. Further north along the coast San Diego, Seyo, Cape Mendocin, and Francis Drakes Port, and the English claim of New Albion are noted. Both Mexico and New Mexico are mapped with considerable sophistication with mines, indigenous peoples, mountains and river ways, and the missions of Santa Fe, Taos, and San Antonio de Senecu (El Paso) noted.
The Mississippi valley is well developed and based upon the most advanced French information available at the time. The forts of St. Louis, Bon Secours are noted, as is the settlement of d’Iberville at Bilochy. Following the Mississippi north we fine the Great Lakes beautifully drawn on the Coronelli model. The French stronghold on the region is evident with forts at Tadousac, Quebec, Sorel, Montreal, and Frontenac identified.
In an act of clear carto-advocacy De L’Isle confines the English colonies to the narrow strip of coastal lands east of the Alleghenies. The River and Fort of Kinibeki (Kennebec) is set as the northern border of English holdings in the region. Boston, Nantucket, Long Island, Manhattan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Jamestown, Roanoke, Charlestown, and St. Augustine, among others, are identified along the eastern seaboard.
At sea there are a couple of elements of note. This is the first printed mapping of the Sargasso Sea, here identified as the “Mer de Sargasse” where Icy flottent des herbes mais en montre quantite. Along the Mexican and California coastline the routes of various navigators including Olivier, Cortez, Gaetan, Mendonza, and Francis Drake are delineated.
Just to the east of Barbados, in the Antilles, a curious apocryphal island appears with the label “I. de Fonseca selon Quelquefuns”. This island, which is here surrounded by dangerous rocks and reefs, appears in several maps of the region as early as Hondius’ Americae Novissima Descriptio where is as identified as Y. de S. B. This island was also identified by M. Rochette with the label Galissioniere’s Rock. Other ships, including the Rainbow, claim to have seen the island as late as 1822. De L’Isle was the first to give the map a definite name, Fonseca. Even so, with so few sightings of the island it disappeared from most maps issued in the 18th century. There is some speculation that discolored water occasionally discharged by the nearby Orinoco River led to various false sightings of land.