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Description:A beautiful and quite scarce original 1677 antique map of Denmark and southern Sweden, was engraved in 1677 - dated in the title - and was published in the 1692 edition of de Rossi's world atlas Mercurio Geografico
General Definitions:Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stablePaper color : - off whiteAge of map color: - EarlyColors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pinkGeneral color appearance: - AuthenticPaper size: - 22 1/2in x 18in (575mm x 460mm)Plate size: - 20 1/2in x 16in (420mm x 405mm)Margins: - Min 1in (25mm)
Imperfections:Margins: - Professional repairs to top & bottom marginsPlate area: - Professional repairs to centerfoldVerso: - Repairs as noted
Background: Before the fifteenth century the people of Southern Europe had little geographical knowledge of the Scandinavian World except from sketchy detail shown in the Catalan Atlas (1375) and on a number of " portolani" embracing Denmark and the southern tip of Norway. It was not until 1427 that a manuscript map prepared about that time by Claudius Clavus (b.1388) a Dane who spent some time in Rome, made available to scholars a tolerable outline of the northern countries and Greenland. That was to remain the best map available for the rest of the century and it was used as the basis for maps of Scandinavia in early printed editions of Ptolemy. Others by Nicolaus Cusanus (1491) and Ehrhard Etzlaub (c. 1492) followed but, needless to say, these are extremely rare; even the later maps by Olaus Magnus and Marcus Jordan, where they have survived at all , are known only by a very few examples. In fact, apart from the rare appearance of an early Ptolemy map, the oldest of Scandinavia which a collector is likely to find are those of Munster's Cosmograhy first published in 1544. In the following centuries the few maps and charts complied in Scandinavia were usually published in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris or Nuremberg, the most important maps often being incorporated in the major Dutch, French & German Atlases. (Ref: Tooley; M&B)