New Evidence for the Date of Five Rare Dutch-Italian Wall Maps: F. de Wit's World Map and W. J. Blaeu's Four Continents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Imitations of famous Dutch wall maps originally produced in Amsterdam by F. de Wit and W. J. Blaeu have recently been rediscovered in Italy. In Bologna, in the archive of Opera Pia dei Poveri Vergognosi, is a set of Blaeu's four wall maps of the continents, engraved on new plates by Pietro Todeschi and published by Giuseppe Longhi. The value of the discovery lies in the completeness of the exemplars, which also bear the publisher's imprint and date of publication, hitherto unknown: Europe 1677; Africa 1678; Asia 1679; America 1679/1680(?). An undated version of de Wit's world wall map, also published by Longhi, has come to light in the same archive. A copy of the same map, this time published by Giovanni Giacomo de' Rossi in Rome in 1675, was then found in Modena in the Seminario Metropolitano. Comparison of the two copies has provided a date for Longhi's undated issue; Longhi's map came after de' Rossi's, that is after 1675.