Lot 88: DANUBE - GASTALDI, GIACOMO (c.1500-1566).

[River Danube]. Rome: Antonio Lafreri, 1560. Engraved map of the River Danube by Fabio Licinio, on two separate sheets, overall 351 x 1032mm, trimmed with original extended margins.

A very rare and important map of the basin of the River Danube, issued on two separate sheets. On 29 April, 1559 Gastaldi was granted a privilege by the Venetian senate to print a large four-sheet map of southeastern Europe, with each sheet conceived such that it could function independently as a complete map. Later that year, Gastaldi published the two northern quadrants of the planned composition. The plates he used were acquired in 1560 by Antonio Lafreri to print his own edition, in which he intially replaced Gastaldi's name with his own. This present map is Lafreri's scarce second version, in which his name has been removed from the cartouche on the eastern sheet. The image covers the territory from Venice to the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea. A rare map, Karrow cites only two copies of the eastern plate of this edition. Karrow no.1 (variant), Tooley:1939 no.27, watermark of a man with a pickaxe, not in Woodward:1996.
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