1686 PORRO, G. / MAGINI, G. - A unique composite atlas with updated Porro maps.

Unique composite atlas containing in total 84 maps - 82 maps engraved by Girolamo Porro and heavenly reworked around 1686 and 2 newly engraved maps; Piccola Tartaria (Crimea, Ukraine) and Danimarca (Denmark). As the first plate in this book is a birds-eye view of Venice we may conclude that the publisher or buyer was from Venice.
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The publisher could have been Pietro Antonio Brigonci. The atlas has no title page and has been published without the descriptive text of the Geographia of Ptolemy and Porcacchi's Isole piu famose del Mondo that usually accompanies these works. The atlas is most likely edited by Pietro Antonio Brigonci who updated the L'Isole plates in 1686. At the same time he could also have acquired the Geographia plates and updated them as well.

The paper of both series is the same and the maps are numbered in brown ink from 1- 84 in a contemporary hand. The atlas has been rebound in the 1800's and blank pages have been inter-leaved. Few of the manuscript map numbering have been shaved. Book block 275x190mm. All maps are dark impressions and have some usual light marginal spotting. In general very good. The atlas contains two newly engraved maps; Piccola Tartaria (Crimea, Ukraine) and Danimarca (Denmark).

Part one:
The book opens with a bird's-eye view of Venice and contains 47 maps, actually 30 for the first edition of 1572, adding 15 from the final version of 1576.
Compared to Thomas Porcacchi maps from "L'isole piu famose del mondo descritte da Thoniaso Porcacchi da Castiglione arretino e intagliate da Girolamo Porro padouano con l'aggiunta di molte isole" in this collection the map San Lorenzo (Madagascar) and the two maps added for the first time in the 1590 edition Descrittione dell’Isola d’Elandia, isola de Gotti and Descrittione dell’Istria are not present.
Importantly, two maps Piccola Tartaria (Crimea, Ukraine) and Danimarca (Denmark) are added.
The New World is represented by "Temistitan" (Mexico City), "Mondo Nuouo," a reduced version of Forlani's very important map of North America first published in Venice in 1565, which was the first to show America as a single geographic entity, and is the second map to show the Strait of Anian in any detail. The interior of the southwestern portion of the continent and the general outline of the west coast of North America reflect discoveries from Coronado’s expedition of 1540–1542 and Cabrillo’s voyage of 1542–1544 up the west coast perhaps as far as Pont Arena, which he named Cabo de Fortunas.2 Note that Baja California is accurately displayed as a peninsula and existence of a northwest passage is clearly delineated. (Burden 42, second state)
There are maps of the American islands of "Spagnvola", "Cvba", "Iamaica", "S. Lorenzo", and "S. Giovanni" with five maps. The islands of the Pacific are depicted in "Isole Molucche". Including two world maps.

Part two:
In this collection, there are 36 of the 37 modern maps from Giovanni Andrea Magini - Geographiae universae tum veteris tum nouae absolutissimum opus duobus voluminibus distinctum, in quorum prior habentur CI. Ptolemaei Pelusiensis geographicae enarrationis. Missing is the oversized Mercator world (Shirley 194). Several plates have extensive re-engraving. World, Cyprus, Egypt, Low Countries, etc.

Mentionable the two 'modern' world maps, first "Vniversi orbis descriptio" which is a reduced version of the 1570 Ortelius map, surrounded by six wind heads (Shirley 195). Magini's mariner's map (Shirley 196) follows Gerard Mercator's large world map of 1569, with fanciful addition of chains of mountains across the souther continent.
Beside the world maps, four continental map of Asia, Africa, America and Europe are included, whereas the Africa map showing parts of Brazil and the Asia map also including elements of America. There are three other maps with parts of America: 'Scandia, sive Regiones Septentrionales' showing the north Atlantic with parts of Labrador (Burden 94), 'Tartariae Imperium' with Japan, parts of Canada and California (Burden 95), and finally 'India Orientalis', the attractive map of south -east Asia with the west coast of North America.

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