Lot Essay
An unrecorded example of Willem Blaeu's rare reissue of the Magini 'Italia Nuova' wallmap. Two examples of this map are recorded, one in the Klencke atlas in the British Library map room has additional descritive Italian text along the lower border, 7 views of Italian cities along the top and 12 illustrations of Italian regional costume along the outer margins (overall dimensions 1360 x 1610mm). A further copy is located at the Bibliotheque Nationale.Of the original 1608 Magini issue a damaged copy survives at the IGM in Florence.On the death of Magini in 1617 , Hessel Gerritsz purchased the plates and issued the wallmap in 1617. A single example of this map survives in the Museum Bodellianum in Leiden. Gerritsz close association with Blaeu, being apprenticed as an engraver to him, undoubtably led to the sale of the plates again, Willem Blaeu reissueing the map certainly before 1621, when he changed his commercial name to Willem Janszoon Blaeu, to avoid confusion with his Jansson namesake.His son Joan republished the map dated 1659, of which examples are to be found in the Atlas of the Great Elector, and the atlas for the Duke of Mecklenburg now at the University of Rostock.Robert Almagia gives a listing of many of the issues of this map in Monumenta Italiae Geographica riproduzioni di carte d'Italia dal secolo xiv al xvi, Florence,1929, p.54b.