|
Tijdschrift voor de geschiedenis van de kartografie in Nederland
|
In the East Indies it was Van Imhoff already who took important
steps in expanding and improving the technical military corps of
the United East India Company (VOC). The number of gunners augmented all through the 18th century. The military and
maritime schools of Batavia, Semarang and the Cape of Good
Hope were part of or gradually were to be part of the administrative organisation.
For military engineers it was of importance that, from 1780 onwards, they succeeded in pushing away the "fabrieken", the
chiefs of the working units. This emancipation also was to change the policy of building activities; on the basis of planning, calculation and elaborated schemes. Helped by the financially
weak position of the VOC the influence of the federal army and
European educated officers was growing.
The officers mentioned were in favour of a centrally directed
systern of defense, designed according to plan, with the help of
preceding surveys. Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff and Carl Friedrich Reimer took the lead in planning cartographical operations. They also influenced military education on the Cape and
in Semarang.
The improvement of defense in the East aimed at wasn't reached before 1795. Lack of finances, political troubles in the Republic and perhaps the traditional idea of the regents that defensive works only cost money were the cause of this. Governors may have delayed expensive fortifications with some cynical pleasure by playing off the various technicians against each
other: Van de Graaff vs. Reimer and naval officers vs. army officers.
Nevertheless the surveys performed, the schools established
and the starting of departments of fortifications and artillery in
the author's view are indications of a more planned colonisation in the nineteenth century based on a policy designed partly
by technicians and scientists: then amongst others using military
surveys as an instrument to give handle to the territory and its
population.
The military surveys in the Republic, the West and the East in
the last 25 years of the eighteenth century show a striking concordance to their goal: wishing to control military operations
and planning centrally.
(back)
Peter H. Meurer
The map of Westphalia by Mercator's heirs (1599)
[Caert-Thresoor 6(1987) 1, pp. 11-14]
On the occasion of the Spanish invasion of Westphalia in November 1598, a map of north-western Germany was published at Duisburg in 1599 by the successors of Gerard Mercator. In the original Latin title Gerard Mercator jun. is named as the author and Baptista van Doetecum as the engraver. In an apparently unique copy the original titie is pasted over with a title in Dutch which names Rumold Mercator as the printer and Cornelis Claesz of Amsterdam as the publisher. This map of Westphalia is the only new production of the Mercator firrn after Gerard's death in 1594. Its cartography is derived from some maps of the Atlas and it is interesting to see that after the death of Johannes Mercator (c. 1595) apparently no member of the Mercator family was capable of engraving maps. The title indicates that there existed contacts between the Mercators and Amsterdam mapsellers well before the copperplates were sold in 1604. (back)
Renger de Bruijn & Marijke Donkersloot-de Vrij
Military cartographical surveys of Utrecht during the Patriots' regime (1787)
[Caert-Thresoor 6(1987) 3, pp. 33-38]
In this article some military maps from 1787 are discussed, which were produced as a result of the so-called Patriot's Rebellion in Utrecht. Two centuries ago the Republic of the Seven United Provinces was the scene of an exceptionally fierce political struggle that eventually developed into a civil war between the Patriots on the one hand and the Orangists, the followers of Prince William V, on the other. Especially in Utrecht a true revolution broke out. There the Patriots had assumed power in the city, while a military force under the Rhinegrave Van Salm, who had corne to assist the Patriots, had put the town in a state of defence. The maps show the various fortifications of Utrecht and its surroundings (i.a. the villages of Zeist, Bunnik, De Bilt and Vreeswijk), The arrival of a Prussian invasion army put an end to the fighting in September 1787. Many Patriots sought refuge in France. Among them was the Utrecht student Quint Ondaatje, who eventualle returned to The Hague in 1795, where he started a career as a senior civil servant in the service of the Batavian Republic (1795-1806). He drew a map of the Batavian Republic, showing the new administrative division of the country, which he had published in 1799. (back)
Paul van den Brink
Maria de Haan and Isaac Tirion. A page from the history of Dutch river-cartography
[Caert-Thresoor 6(1987) 3, pp. 39-42]
The literary remains of Cornelis Velsen (1703-1755), clerk of
the States of Holland and West-Friesland between 1731 and
1755 constitutes an important source for the reconstruction of
Dutch river-cartography in the first half of the eighteenth century.
Velsen was particulary responsible for the boarding out of the
manuscript maps, the States had ordered him to engrave. For
that reason Velsen maintained a lively correspondence with several engravers, such as David Koster (1686-1752), Jan van
Jagen (1709-1800) and the, so far unknown, female engraver
Maria de Haan.
This article deals with the correspondence between Velsen and
the Amsterdam bookseller and printer Isaac Tirion (1705-
1765), who between 1751 and 1754 was responsible for the
type-cutting of the copperplates. During this period Maria de
Haan was in charge of the engraving of the maps. Frorn the letters we learn of the ambitions of Tirion, especially his strive for
the engraving of the maps as a whole, at the cost of Maria de
Haan.
(back)
Günter Schilder
A peculiar 16th century map of the central part of the Netherlands in two sheets, published by the Galle family
[Caert-Thresoor 6(1987) 4, pp. 49-53]
In the early 17th century Theodoor Galle (1571-1633) published a
map in two sheets, entitled'Nieuwe caerte vande Veluwe, Betuwe, ende
andere omliggende provincien, als Hollandt, Utrecht, Zutphen &c.'
(79,5 x 40,3). He did not engrave new copperplates for this map, but
used some of the plates of the wafl map of the Seventeen Provinces
in twelve sheets, published by his father Filips Galle in 1578. We only
know an edition of this map published by Joan Baptista Vrients in
Antwerp in 1605. After the death of Vrients, the copperplates were
bought by the Plantin publishingfirm in 1612, sc, Theodoor Galle -
son-in-law of Jan Moretus - had access to these plates. Theodoor used
three of the twelve plates for his map. The plates 7 and 9 for the map
itself and from plate 12 he used the cartouche with the scale bars. In
the map contents he only made minor changes, just as Vrients did, so
Theodoor's map shows the situation of 1578. The tit]e and
impressum are printed on a separate slip of paper, pasted at the top of
the map. Probably Theodoor Galle published this map as a part of the
plan to publish a loose-leaf atlas of the Low Countries. Several other
sheets of such an aflas were recently found (Seventeen Provinces,
Antwerp, Artois, Brabant, Flanders, Gelderland, East and West
Friesland, Hainault, Liege, Luxembourg, Namur,'Germania', Rhine,
Palatinate and 'Gallia'). These sheets are reprints with Theodoor
Galle's impressum of plates originally used for Ortelius' Theatrum
Orbis Terrarum. They must have been published before 1628, when
Balthasar Moretus planned a reissue of the complete Theatrum.
The map of the central part of the Netherlands in two sheets was
reprinted by Joannes Galle, Theodoor's son. He only changed the
impressum.
(back)
Marc Hameleers
The Aslake and Duchy of Cornwall world maps: Two recently refound fragments of medieval world maps
[Caert-Thresoor 6(1987) 4, pp. 54-60]
In 1986 two worldmaps were refound in Great Britain. Both maps formed
for ages the inner side of the vellum cover of two books.
The first must be dated between 1260 and 1285 and was found in the archives of His Royal Highness of the Prince of Wales and Duke of Comwall.
That's why it got the name: 'The Duchy of Cornwall World Map'. It is a pitty that not the complete map stil] exists. Only the fragment that forms the
right below edge remains. It shows us some Aflantic islands, a big part of
Africa and the Red sea and belongs to the 'T in O-mapfamily'. The complete map must have looked more or less like the more well known Hereford World Map.
The second map got the name'Aslake Map'. It got that name from Walter
Aslake a Norfolk landowner from the 15th century. He did hts administration in a book of which the cover was consolidated by the vellum om which
the map was drawn. It was found in a private collection. Analogical to the
Duchy of Comwall-fragment the Aslake Map shows us a part of Africa.
The other part of the then known world has not been preserved. It must be
dated between 1350 and 1385. The map still belongs tot the 'T in 0 tradition'. It can be established that the drawer in the fourteenth century must have had a great nautical knowledge for the time being.
A bulletin of the British Library suggests a relationship with the Psalter Map
(drawn in ca. 1275). The reason is that we can see several toponymes on
the Aslake map that correspond with the the Psalter Map. Probably the
drawer used an elder Catalan portulanchart too. On the basis of the cartographic information of the Aslake Map we can conclude that a map has
been refound that gives, although it stfil belongs to the T-in-0 mapfamily,
nautical information of which we thought until recently that it came tot
England for about two hundred years later.
(back)