'The English Atlas' of Moses Pitt, 1680-83

Abstract

term Atlas was borrowed from the title-page of a similar but later publication compiled by his friend Gerard Mercator, and quickly established itself as the general designation of a book of maps. Rather over a century elapsed before the first large general atlas to be launched in England was announced by the London bookseller Moses Pitt from his shop at the Sign of the Angel in St. Paul's Churchyard. It was to be called 'The English Atlas,' a title which John Ogilby had already used for the set of descriptive geographies (including his famous Road Book) which he began to publish in 1670. It is probable there? fore that Pitt chose it for his own proposed atlas only after Ogilby's death in September 1676. The new undertaking, grandiose in its scope (for six hundred maps on nine hundred sheets were at one time spoken of), was to prove a melancholy failure. Of the eleven volumes finally planned only four actually appeared, nor is a reason difficult to find. Moses Pitt was neither a scholar nor a carto? grapher: he lacked capital, he lacked suitable premises, he could not com? mand the services of skilled map-draughtsmen, nor of qualified geographical writers. Hence while it is true that he did not lack good advice he was unable to profit by it. It was indeed idle for any English publisher to dream that he could, at a single bound, reach the level of the world-famous cartographical establishments of Holland and France, with their learned personnel and long experience. Yet certain circumstances were in Pitt's favour, for by 1678, the date of his first prospectus, copies of the two most magnificent contemporary atlases, those of Jansson and Blaeu, both printed at Amsterdam, were rapidly becoming unprocurable. Both houses had ceased publication. In the case of the Blaeu atlas, this was due to a destructive fire in the printing house in 1672 followed not long afterwards by the death of the head of the firm. The last of the Janssons had died in 1660, leaving the business to his widow and his three sons-in-law, the brothers Waesberg, who also styled themselves Jansson a Waesberg. Not one of the co-heirs had the qualifications of the famous scholar-cartographers who had built up the reputation of the firm. The Jansson atlas had its origin in that of Mercator himself, enlarged subsequently by the work of two generations of the family of Hondius into which John Jansson entered by marriage. The Blaeus too had been scholars. The first founder of their Atlas, William Janszoon Blaeu, when commencing business as a young globe-maker, had studied under the famous Tycho Brahe himself. By the middle of the seventeenth century the two rival Dutch atlases had alike reached the cumbersome dimensions of eleven volumes, and in 1661 Jansson's heirs took the practical step of publishing an 'Atlas Contractus* from the existing plates before allowing the greater work to lapse. The worn