[Gulf of Guinea].: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

This item has been sold, but you can get on the Waitlist to be notified if another example becomes available, or purchase a digital scan.

Get on Waitlist

Buy Digital Image

1570 Camocio West Central Africa Sheet of Unacquirable Wall Map of Africa

GulfofGuinea-camocio-1570

$3,750.00

Title

[Gulf of Guinea].
1570 (undated) 13.75 x 15.75 in (34.925 x 40.005 cm)

Description

This is the Gulf of Guinea sheet from Giovanni Francesco Camocio's extraordinary twelve-sheet 1570 wall map of Africa. It is for-all-intent-and-purposes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the serious Africa collector. The complete Camocio map exists in a single known complete example, and even separate sheets, as here, are unobtainable. The map is loosely derived from Giacomo Gastaldi's 1564 map, itself surviving in only 12 examples. Gastaldi's geography was informed by Claudius Ptolemy, the Berber Andalusi diplomat Joannes Leo Africanus (1494 - 1554), the writings of Portuguese scholar João de Barros (1496 - 1570), and the reports of Magellan circumnavigation survivor Duarte Barbosa (c. 1480 - 1521). Gastaldi is also thought to have had access to lost Portuguese portolan charts, influencing the exceptional coastal detail evident here.

The Gulf of Guinea Sheet

Following Betz's numbering, this is sheet number 6 of the complete wall map. It focuses on the western-central coast of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea, from 'Cape 3 Points' in Ghana to coastal Angola. In the Gulf, the islands of Bioko (Fernando Po, Y. de Fernando Poon), Principe, São Tomé, and Annobón are depicted. Typical of the early mapping of Africa, the relatively detailed coast gives way to a speculative interior, here beautifully engraved with dramatic mountains, extensive imaginary river systems, and massive inland lakes. These latter include the legendary Lake Niger and the great Lake Zaire, proposed by Ptolemy as one of the sources of the White Nile, yet here simultaneously the source of the Zaire River (Congo).

Here Be Dragons

Despite the common cliché, vanishingly few old maps actually sport dragons. This one has two, one of which is breathing fire. In this respect, and indeed the generally more finished artistic treatment of the map's cartouches, Camocio's work is indisputably superior to Gastaldi's 1564 precursor map. The whole exhibits an extraordinary virtuosity of engraving and the fragmentary cartouche in the lower left gives evidence of what must have been an ultimately magnificent composite production.

Publication History and Census

The twelve-sheet map of Africa was engraved and printed as part of a four-continent set in the shop of Giovanni Camocio. Though undated, Woodward estimates the map was produced between 1570 and 1575. The complete map is known to survive in a single complete copy at the Bell Library of the University of Minnesota. Betz cites an incomplete example (lacking the present sheet) in private hands. In some 30 years in the trade, we have never encountered or found reference to any example of any separate sheet on the market. On its own, this is an otherwise unacquirable cartographic artifact. The prospect that other sheets might one day surface represents a towering challenge for the dedicated and patient Africa collector.

CartographerS

Giovanni Francesco Camocio (Camozzi)(???? - c. 1575) was a Venetian cartographer, map publisher and printer. He was one of the most prolific of the so-called Lafreri school of Italian mapmakers in the second part of the sixteenth century. Little is known of Camocio's early years. His birthdate and place are not known. He is thought to have lived in Asola (near the Venetian fortress of Crema). In 1552 'Giovanni Francesco Camozzi' and his partners petitioned the Doge of Venice for a 15 year privilege for two books in progress, one a translation of a Greek medical text and the other a translation of Aristotle's Meteorology. The latter was published in 1556 by which time he was operating free of his unnamed partners. He would publish eleven more books until 1571, by which point he is known to have his own copper-plate printing shop. His output includes engravings of drawings and paintings by Titian, and various religious scenes. He is best known as a map printer, being among the Italian map publishers known collectively as the 'Lafreri' school (after Antonio Lafreri, the first of these to include a title sheet in his composite atlases.) The period between 1560 and 1575 resulted in Camocio's publication of no fewer than 36 large maps and many smaller format works. The end point of Camocio's production coincided with the plague which devastated Venice between 1574 and 1577. As there is no record relating to the man after 1575, it is very likely that he succumbed to the pestilence. More by this mapmaker...

Giocomo Gastaldi (c. 1500 - October, 1566) was an Italian astronomer, cartographer, and engineer active in the second half of the 16th century. Gastaldi (sometimes referred to as Jacopo or Iacobo) began his career as an engineer, serving the Venetian Republic in that capacity until the fourth decade of the sixteenth century. During this time he traveled extensively, building a large library relating to voyages and exploration. From about 1544 he turned his attention to mapmaking, working extensively with Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Nicolo Bascarini, and Giovanbattista Pedrezano, as well ask taking private commission for, among others, Venice's Council of Ten. He is credited with the fresco maps of Asia and Africa still extent in the map room of the Doge's Palace. Gastaldi was also one of the first cartographers to embrace copper plate over woodblock engraving, marking and important development in the history of cartography. His 1548 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia was the first to be printed in a vernacular; it was the first to be printed in copperplate. As with his Swiss/German contemporary Münster, Gastaldi;'s work contained many maps depicting newly discovered regions for the first time, including the first map to focus on the East Coast of North America, and the first modern map of the Indian Peninsula. His works provided the source for the vast majority of the Venetian and Roman map publishers of the 1560s and 70s, and would continue to provide an outsize influence on the early maps of Ortelius, De Jode, and Mercator. Learn More...

Condition

Very good. Two marginal mends at top, not impacting printed area. Else excellent with generous margins and a superb strike.

References

Betz, R., The Mapping of Africa A Cartobibliography of Printed Maps of the African Continent to 1700, #11, sheet 6. One example in the Bell Library.

Shopping Cart

Your cart is currently empty.