Lot 136: ASIA - GASTALDI, GIACOMO (c.1500-1566).

La Discrittione dell prima parte dell'Asia. Rome:Antonio Lafreri, 1561. Engraved map of the Middle East by Jacob Bos, 447 x 707mm; Il Disegno Della Seconda Parte Dell'Asia. Engraved map of southwestern Asia centred on the Arabian Peninsula by Fabio Licinio, on two joined sheets, 477 x 736mm; Il Disegno Della Terza Parte Dell'Asia. Engraved map of India and southeastern Asia by Fabio Licinio, on two joined sheets only, 489 x 742mm; both Venice: Giacomo Gastaldi, 1561. (Some discolouration to margins, first two maps vertical creasing with discolouration at central fold, third map, some loss to margin outside of image at lower right corner). Respectively; Karrow nos.1, 30/91 & 30/92; Tooley:1939 nos.48, 54 & 61, Woodward:1996 first map, watermark 292, third map, watermark 239, second map has watermark of an eagle inside a shield, surmounted by a star (not in Woodward:1996).

A VERY RARE SET OF THREE HIGHLY IMPORTANT MAPS OF ASIA by the greatest master of Venetian cartography. Having been established in the city for two decades, by the late 1550s Gastaldi, the "cosmographer to the Republic of Venice", was devising the large-scale monumental masterpieces that would confirm his legacy. These three maps represent elements of an intended colossal map of Asia, a project so ambitious that it was never realised. Geographically, they are based on the small-scale maps Gastaldi previously made of the continent for Giambattista Ramusio's Navigationi et viaggi. The first map is a faithful second edition of Gastaldi's 1559 original work, produced by Antonio Lafreri, the French-born publisher based in Rome. The image is centred on Persia, and the curious depiction of the Caspian Sea in the ovoid form it invariably assumed until the 1730s. The artistic virtuosity of the engraving betrays the hand of Jacob Bos, who enlivens the maritime spaces with numerous ships, and the Steppes with Tartars' tents. The second map, in the first state, was produced by Gastaldi himself and was finely engraved by Fabio Licinio. It is centred on the Arabian Peninsula, and encompasses the area from the Nile valley to the mouth of the Indus. The third map, of the same producer and engraver, lacks the two additional southern sections, but nevertheless provides a magnificent perspective of India and the Malay Peninsula and southern China. Unusually, it contains a gazetteer of place names.
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