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Ownership of The Map Collector passed to Mercator's World in 1996. That, in
turn, ceased publication in 2003, without warning and in the middle of a subscription period.
The present whereabouts of the proprietor of that magazine is unknown. The former Editor of The Map Collector, who may or may not have rights in this respect, is happy for this
article to be reproduced on the 'Map History' site.
The text of this article is reproduced from The Map Collector 46 (1989), pp. 2-10.
There has been no attempt to update it, besides the insertion of one or two online links.
The author, Map Librarian of the British Library, was for twenty years a cataloguer in the antiquarian map business. He offers warning and advice to aspiring cartobibliographers, and indeed to any who wish to deepen their appreciation of engraved maps as physical objects.
The content of a printed map is, of course, of primary importance and interest. But, if the map is to be properly understood, it must first be considered as a physical object in its cartobibliographical context. For instance, unless a 1676 printing of a John Speed county map is seen as a reissue of one engraved in the l600s, and copied, with minor mistakes, from Christopher Saxton's survey in the 1570s, an account of the Elizabethan landscape will be mistaken for one of Restoration England. Reconstructing a lineage of that sort, for areas less fully studied than English county maps, can be partly achieved by delving into historical sources. Much more will emerge from examination of the maps themselves.
Accurate and adequate reconstructions of early map production techniques already exist, and
this piece will not attempt to retrace the same ground.1
Nor will it trespass on the detailed technical accounts of expert
practitioners.2 [See, for online examples,
Web articles: themes ('Printing methods')]. But it is notoriously
hard for those interested in recreating the publishing history of printed maps to find
practical advice, and each has had to devise their own working methods. This article will try
to pass on some hard-won personal experience gained during twenty-five years spent in close
observation of early maps. Those who follow will no doubt adapt and improve on the suggested
procedures. The best advice was given by the late Professor Coolie Verner some years ago.
3 It will be impossible to avoid retracing some
of his steps, but this opportunity to present the 'nitty gritty' of early maps to a wider
audience, with the benefit of illustrations, is intended as a tribute to an inspiring example,
and a friend.
The overwhelming majority of maps produced between the mid-sixteenth and mid-nineteenth
centuries are engravings, normally on copper. But - when laying down what could be termed the
first law of cartobibliography - it is not necessary at this point to distinguish engraving
from woodcut and lithography, the two other techniques most likely to be encountered by those
handling pre-1850 maps:
No understanding of printed maps is possible unless this simple fact is kept constantly in
mind. This is, in a sense, the copper-bottom-line of cartobibliography. Since it is hardly ever
possible to examine the printing platform itself, and never in any but its finally amended
form, the researcher must make do with surviving printed impressions taken from the particular
platform concerned. Of course, it is primarily printed maps that are collected, curated and
studied, not woodblocks or copper plates. But if we are to begin tapping the secrets of maps it
is as well to remember the second law of cartobibliography:
The cartobibliographer's primary task is to recount the life history of a printing platform -
the intentional and accidental changes made to it - by attempting to place in order a series
of impressions pulled from it. He can then run out these maps in a numbered chronological
sequence as 'State 1', 'State 2', etc.,4
because each state represents an irreversible amendment to the printing platform.5 This crucial point is often lost sight of in the
literature and one sometimes reads of elements on a map disappearing and reappearing, in a
manner no more plausible than that of Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat.
I have used the ungainly term printing 'platform' so that comments could apply equally to
woodblocks, copper plates and lithographic stones in a way that 'plate' cannot. The practical
discussion that follows, however, will be concerned solely with copper engraving, an intaglio
process in which the printed detail is cut into the plate. Woodcut is the opposite of this in
that all unwanted matter is cut away (a relief process), whereas the lithograph is drawn
directly onto and reproduced from a flat surface (planographic). Any examination of maps
produced by one of these three different methods starts from premises that are inapplicable to
the other two. Woodcut and lithography would need their own separate articles {Afterword:
this was not done}.
Each printed map is an impression made by the transfer of ink from a unique
printing platform or group of platforms (usually woodblock, copper plate or lithographic
stone).
That the piece of paper we are looking at is no more than a reflection, literally a mirror-image,
of a wooden, metal or stone printing platform, which was present in a particular
workshop at a particular time.
Precise measurements will not necessarily reveal the separate origin of two apparently
indistinguishable maps. Paper was dampened before printing and would shrink afterwards. Hence
a printed map is always slightly smaller than the plate it is printed from, and copies may be
a little smaller than their models. Nevertheless, as the rate of shrinkage is unpredictable,
it is unwise to place too much reliance on measurement to identify a copy because there can
be great differences between impressions taken from the same plate (what we shall call
sibling impressions).7 It is possible,
however, to compare the blank band between the printed image and the plate-mark (the recessed
line that marks the edge of the copper plate) since significant variation here could well
reveal different plates or even modern imitations.
A better way to tell whether one or more plates is involved is to look at fine detail, and in
particular at lettering. The way words are broken up by the lines of longitude and latitude,
for instance, can often be revealing [compare the last two details from the Ortelius map of
America]. Another method (and one used in various bibliographic disciplines) is to place a
ruler diagonally across inscriptions on two similar maps, noting whether it lies across the
same letters. Whereas other detail would be directly transferred to a new plate, lettering
often seems to have been copied by eye. The second engraver was not trying to deceive a
twentieth-century cartobibliographer by making a strictly accurate copy (however much one might
suspect it) and small differences between two plates can usually be spotted.
If the tests outlined above suggest that a single plate is involved, or if the issue is
unresolved, the way to demonstrate this beyond doubt is to identify shared accidentals.
No engraver ever copied another's slips of the graver, for instance the overrunning of a line,
nor will the new plate repeat damage on the original. Duplicated scratch marks are the best
proof that two maps are sibling impressions. In some cases, evidence of this kind is the only
way to show that dramatically differing maps originated from the same plate.
When dealing with maps pulled from different plates nothing is the same until proved to be so. States from a single plate, on the other hand, will be identical except where intentional alteration or accidental damage has taken place. The process of turning sibling impressions into a defined sequence of states consists, therefore, in observing and interpreting the changes that occurred during the life of a single plate.
Changes to a plate are made once and for all. This fact must never be forgotten. It is possible that a map dedicated to the Earl of A and subsequently altered to honour the Duke of B might, in its third state, repeat the dedication to the Earl of A. Highly improbable, but theoretically possible. In that instance, however, the second dedication to the Earl of A would have been freshly cut over the erased inscription honouring the Duke of B, itself a replacement for the original dedication. Adding the second dedication, like any other plate change, would have involved hammering the plate from behind and rubbing the relevant part of the engraved surface until the soft copper spread out and obliterated the incised lines. The erasure and the new engraving are equally irreversible steps; thus comparison of our two hypothetical dedications to the Earl of A would reveal differences in the engraving.
There is therefore only one possible printing sequence for a group of sibling impressions. By contrast, similar, even 'virtually identical' maps pulled from different plates can only be placed in chronological order after some thought, and the conclusion may be open to challenge. Was this particular mistake perpetrated by the engraver of plate A and corrected on B, or is plate A actually a later and corrupted form?
Running out a group of sibling impressions into an unchallengeable chronological sequence is usually an easy task, even if none of the printing dates is known. Conspicuous additions or deletions will often allow the impressions to be subdivided into an earlier group without the change and a later one with it. Tell-tale traces of imperfectly erased matter will often give the game away.
If the bibliographer intends to document every change, one method is to make a minute
comparison of the earliest and latest impressions. Once all the differences between them have
been noted, the intermediate impressions can then be checked in turn against the list of
changes, and the first occurrence of each alteration noted. Every subsequent impression will
automatically repeat the alteration in question, unless that section of the plate was later
reworked. The only drawback to this method is that if a place-name was added in State 2 and
removed in the penultimate state, it would not show up in the analysis.8
This rarely occurs and the saving of time and effort is so great
that most researchers would find it an acceptable alternative to a minute, side-by-side
comparison of each state with its successor.
To understand early printed maps, first try and enter the minds of their authors or producers.
Since it cost money to alter a plate, the publishers of early maps tended to undertake this as infrequently as possible, and then only because it made commercial sense. Researchers often forget that each engraved map represented to its publisher an equation in which costs (copper plate, engraver's fee, presswork expenses, paper, etc.) had to balance sales to produce a profit. With some notable exceptions (including, of course, official survey departments) map publishers were businessmen first and geographical scholars second, if at all.
Our first category, geographical change, must theoretically consider the possibility that any single feature might have been altered during the course of a map's life. The third law of cartobibliography, on the other hand, reduces this nightmarish possibility to manageable proportions. Many who look at early maps start with the assumption that map publishers would have access to the latest geographical information and would automatically incorporate it into their maps without delay. In fact, this seldom happened.
If a publisher is known to have belonged to the 'laissez-faire' majority, and if a check shows that he failed to react to major changes, it is unlikely that other geographical features would have been altered either. However, 'major' when seen from mid-eighteenth century Spain, for example, might well not square with what seems important in another country today. A publisher would respond to his own public, who were likely to have rated highly those events that enhanced their country's prestige. Universal talking-points would be looked for on maps and there was doubtless pressure from customers to provide them; other features could often be safely ignored. Hence the discovery of the Cape Horn passage in 1616 and the foundation of Philadelphia in 1682 were cartographic 'musts' whereas, surprisingly perhaps, the Dutch charting of Australia and the foundation of New York were cartographic non-events.
The second category, mathematical change, tends to involve genuine improvement of a technical nature, and is seldom encountered.
Once the commercial imperatives underpinning a publisher's attitude to his plate stock are
taken fully into account, it will come as no surprise that most states of an engraved plate are
defined in terms of the third category, bibliographical change. The most common alterations to
a printed map concern either the date or the publisher's name and address. The popular formula,
'A new and correct map of ... ', sometimes used to mask a copy of a copy made some decades
before, indicated a publisher's desire to pass off his productions as topical. A similar effect
would be achieved by altering the date, and nothing else. Since it was the year that mattered,
day and month would often remain untouched.10
Leaving a map undated in the first place avoided this problem, which is why such a large
proportion of early maps were mute on this point. Ironically, those responsible for modern
imitations frequently add a date to give supposed authenticity.
A map's imprint provided free publicity for the publisher. When combined with his address, it
directed the potential customer to his shop. Map plates frequently passed from one publisher's
possession to another, and publishers often moved premises. It is rare to find a map that is
reticent about changes of this sort. Maps are therefore a good source of commercial information
about their creators. However, care must be taken not to give credence to an address found
linked to an anachronistic date. Guillaume Delisle, Aaron and John Arrowsmith, to give just
three examples, left the dates on their maps unaltered as they recorded moves to a succession
of new premises.
Decorative change, the fourth type, is likely to concern highly visible elements of a map and
hence be easy to identify. Even when it is tempting to see aesthetic alteration as evidence of
creativity, a commercial motive is sometimes more plausible. The reason that Mercator's maps
were restyled in the 1630s was to hide their sixteenth-century origin. Although portraits,
particularly of royalty, served far more than a decorative function, they can be mentioned at
this stage as one of the elements a map publisher would feel the greatest need to change.
The fifth category of change we have termed 'maintenance'. This primarily involves the
recutting of engraved detail. Repeated subjection of the relatively soft copper plate to the
great pressure of the rolling press imperceptibly wore it down and reduced the depth of the
original cut, so that it was able to retain and transfer to the sheet of paper progressively
less ink. Opinions vary as to the number of impressions that could be taken from an
unretouched copper plate, but it was probably in the middle hundreds.11 Some publishers clearly arranged for their plates to be recut
before the reduction in quality became noticeable - you never find a faint Blaeu map, for
example. But others, and J. B. Homann is a good instance, continued to pull, and sell, maps
that by the end were no more than semi-legible. Recutting could affect small details, or
specific categories of engraving, or the entire plate. The topographical detail on Emanuel
Bowen's largest map of Sussex (1749) was recut, for example, while less essential elements
such as the title cartouche and plan of Lewes were allowed to fade into obscurity.
Recutting, a less skilled operation than the original engraving, is not likely to have been
entrusted to highly-paid craftsmen. Given, additionally, that many of the finer lines would
have disappeared before the publisher authorised the operation, a recut plate is inevitably
less fine than its original form. The researcher is liable to be misled on two counts when
faced with a revitalised plate. Firstly, the reincised lines may literally be new ones, if
the original detail - coastal shading, for example, had become so faint that it was easier to
start afresh. Even where the graver was following and enlarging the cuts of the first
engraver, the new craftsman might well impose his own forms on some letters. Secondly, it is
confusing that successive states which had been getting progressively weaker should be
succeeded by one that might be even blacker than the earliest printing.12
The alternative to recutting was to engrave a new, substitute plate. These replicated plates
are sometimes hard to distinguish from the originals. Whereas some publishers favoured either
recutting or plate replication, others employed both methods. It is now becoming clear that
the Ortelius and Homann maps were kept alive at different times in both these ways.13 Careful analysis will be needed before we can be
sure just how many of their maps were affected and in what ways.
From time to time, plates were cut down by the publisher. Suggestions that a plate might have
been extended are implausible, given that it was probably impossible to attach an extra section
to a plate in such a way that it could withstand the immense pressure of printing. Plates
butted together for combined printing (at least in the period before electrotyping and
lithographic transfer) will betray their separate plate-marks. But trimming off a section from
a plate was quite a common occurrence, particularly around 1630 when the ornate maps of Willem
Blaeu and his rivals surrendered their borders so that they might fit the format of a standard
atlas.
Although repair to a broken plate belongs strictly in the maintenance category, this is more
conveniently considered in the sixth and final category of plate change - accidental damage.
Mistakes by the engraver have already been mentioned as the best way of building up a unique
'signature' for a plate. Other 'accidentals' may develop during the life of the plate.
Damage could take various forms, the most common being scratches and breaks. Whether these
developments should be considered as 'states', in the same way as acts of conscious human
intervention, is for others to decide. Nevertheless, they can confirm, and sometimes refine, a
sequence of states. Whereas scratches will become fainter with time since they react like the
engraved image, breaks tend to deepen. On occasions, rivets would be inserted in an attempt to
hold the plate together. If the weakness occurred at the edge of the plate, as with the Speed
map of Surrey, the entire corner might be lost. Such accidents can provide a watershed in the
printing history of a particular plate. All impressions of the Speed map of Surrey with the
missing corner, for example, must be later than 1627.
For analytical convenience, changes to engraved maps have been marshalled into six categories.
It is best, though, if plate histories ignore these divisions. What is needed for each
succeeding state is a clear statement of those ways in which it differs from its predecessor.
Reference to common or repeated elements should be ignored, since this is superfluous.
To underline the extent that the printed sheet serves as a surrogate for the absent (and almost
certainly destroyed) plate, the sequence of states will sometimes include theoretical variants.
Actual impressions do not always have to be traced before prior or intermediate states can be
identified with some confidence. Once the chronological order of states has been established,
gaps may be apparent. The evidence for hypothetical states comes largely from inscriptions,
which, though supposedly erased, remain partially legible. Close examination of an apparently
unrecorded 'anonymous' map of America, recently acquired by the British Library, allows the
erased imprint of the mid-eighteenth century London publisher, George Foster, to be
resurrected, thus adding two, rather than just one map to the appropriate bibliographies.14
This brief introduction has highlighted some of the snares waiting to trap the unwary
researcher, in the hope that its relatively simple prescriptions and outlined shortcuts will
encourage others to tackle cartobibliography. There are maps of many parts of the world waiting
to be described; a good eye and copious dedication are the main qualifications needed.