1682 Cantelli-Rossi Map of China, Japan and Korea

This is a scarce 1682 Cantelli da Vignola map of China, Japan and Korea, presenting a striking and up-to-date view of the Far East benefitting from Jesuit and Dutch reports. Its framework and outline are derived from the 1552 Martino Martini map produced by Blaeu, but this map is significantly updated, at least in part, from the reports of the Jesuits Bento de Góis and Johann Grueber.

The Land Route from Agra to China

Bento de Góis (1562 - 1607) was the first known European to travel from India to China, having done so via Afghanistan - his goal being to determine whether Marco Polo's 'Cathay' and 'China' were the same place - they were. His journey - incognito, in the guise of an Armenian trader - took him from Agra (1602) to Kabul. From there, he crossed the Hindu Kush and the Pamirs, reaching Yarkand, the capital of Kashgaria, in 1603. Kashgaria appears in the upper left as 'Cascar;' Yarkand here is spelled 'Hiarcan.' From there, de Góis joined a jade caravan heading to Beijing: the stops along that route, including the fortified city of Cialis, appear. His caravan crossed the Great Wall at Jiayuguan (Chiaicuon), moving on to Suzhou (Sucieu) in late 1605. Unfortunately, Ming authorities prevented de Góis from approaching Beijing. His efforts to contact his fellow Jesuit Matteo Ricci, then in Beijing, failed until 1606. Ricci sent Giovanni Fernandes to rescue their brother, but de Góis died 11 days after Fernandes's arrival.

It is puzzling that this data does not appear on the Martini map: some of the place names relating to de Góis' journey appear as early as 1626 on Speed's map of China (which otherwise owes more to Ortelius and Hondius than any other source.) Its inclusion here may be due to the success of a later overland journey going the other direction - perhaps Bento de Góis' 1602 voyage provided the germ for a later journey recorded here.

The Land Route from China to Agra

In 1661, well after the publication of Martino Martini's maps, another Jesuit - Johann Grueber, a professor of mathematics active at the court of Beijing - was tasked to travel to Rome. The journey could not be done by sea, due to the Dutch blockade of Macau. Consequently, Grueber decided to attempt traveling first to Goa overland via Tibet and Nepal. It is hard to imagine that Grueber, a Jesuit active in China, would have been unaware of the efforts of de Góis. The journey passed through Sinning-fu (Sining) and then through Kokonor to Lhasa (Lassa). They crossed the difficult mountain passes of the Himalayas, arrived at Kathmandu, Nepal, and descended into the Ganges basin, moving on to Agra. Grueber carried on overland through Persia and Turkey, reaching Rome in 1664. While de Góis's journey met largely with disaster, Grueber's successful trek provided the first detailed report of a practicable land route between Europe and China.

Kokonor

Among the details deriving from Grueber' travels is the massive lake named 'Kokonor ó Mar grande.' This 'Great Sea' is the Qinghai Lake, the largest in China. This endorheic lake is fed by twenty-three rivers and empties into none. On this map, Kokonor is fed by a 'Toktokay' River, and feeds into the Hoang (Yellow River). (As a point of fact, Qinghai did once empty into the Huang He, but this was about 150,000 years ago.)

Japan

The Blaeu/Martini treatment of Japan is very different from what Cantelli offers here. The basic outline of Honshu and the southwestern islands is similar, but the present map is superior regarding city names and placement. Also, where Martini displays the proto-Hokkaido land of 'Ieso' and a largely featureless mainland beyond it, the Cantelli/Rossi reveals a peninsular Tartari di Yupi, as informed by a 1643 Dutch journey.

No Cities of Gold

16th-century Spanish legend hinted at islands east of Japan so saturated in gold and silver that the inhabitants even built their homes out of it. The idea inspired at least two expeditions to the region. Anthony Van Diemen sent Abel Tasman and Matthijs Hendricksz Quast in 1639 to find it (he made it to Taiwan and Nagasaki's Dejima Island, but found no gold houses.) A 1643 expedition led by Maerten de Vries and Cornelis Jansz Coen also failed to find cities of silver: it did, nonetheless have a profound and long-lasting cartographic influence. The mapping of Japan's coast from Yokohama Bay north along Honshu has been improved substantially over the Martini; beyond the Strait of Zungar (Tsuagaru Kaikyo), De Vries's cartography reveals part of the coast of Hokkaido, a Cape of Aniva, Cape of Patience, as well as one of the Kuril Islands (Isola di Stati corresponds with Kunashir), and beyond it the Strait of de Vries. After passing through the strait, De Vries sailed westward, charting the fork-like peninsulas of southern Sakhalin, but missing the strait that separated them from Hokkaido - leading to the peninsular form shown here. From there, they sailed south into more known waters. De Vries and Coen were the first Europeans to enter these waters, which were then little known even to the Japanese. They made early contact with the indigenous Ainu people of Hokkaido, whose silver-hilted daggers must have been tantalizing.

De Vries and Coen were the first to discover the Kuril Islands, and were also the first European navigators to discover Sakhalin and map its southern coastline.

Korea

Though far too narrow - an error shared by Martini - Korea is shown as a peninsula. It appears significantly longer than on the Martini map, despite its place names deriving exclusively from that source. The Yalu River is named (Yalo), and its mouth is correctly positioned. Its course here runs sharply northwards to its source in an imaginary lake, situated amidst the land of the Tartari del Kin ó dell' Oro. A further note in Italian marks these Tatars as 'those that occupied, and now reign in China.' Thus, we can understand that 'Kin' should read 'Qing.' The word also translates to 'gold,' leading to the map's translation of the word to 'Oro.'

A Beautiful and Distinctive Engraving

Cantelli’s maps, notably their cartouches, were some of the most attractively engraved of the later 17th-century. Coronelli’s more celebrated though later maps were clearly influenced in their engraving style by Cantelli, or properly speaking by Cantelli and Rossi's engraver, Giorgio Widman. The map's superb baroque cartouche is flanked by plump mer-men and overflowing cornucopiae, while surmounted by a silk-robed and mustachioed eastern potentate.

Publication History and Census

This map is rare. It was engraved by Giorgio Widman in Rome for inclusion in the Cantelli-Rossi 1682 Mercurio Geografico, which was produced in one edition. It has appeared on the market only a handful of times in the past 20 years. We see one separate example of this map in OCLC, at the National Library of Australia. The Mercurio Geografico is catalogued only at Oxford, Yale, and the Clements.