Manuscript inventory for an important Spanish cartographical library
By DE AGUIRRE, Domingo; and others , 1773
£6,000
BUY

[Untitled catalogue of a Cartographical Library

Ephemera
  • Author: DE AGUIRRE, Domingo; and others
  • Publication place: [Spain
  • Publication date: after 1773].
  • Physical description: Folio. 22 leaves, written in a neat clerical hand on 41 (3 blank).
  • Dimensions: 305 by 210mm. (12 by 8.25 inches).
  • Inventory reference: 16388

Notes

Manuscript inventory for an enviably extensive and valuable collection of both manuscript and printed maps from the eighteenth century: with the earliest being dated 1662 and the latest 1773.

The inventory, which includes reference numbers, is divided into twenty-four parts, which are predominantly arranged geographically, with sections on world maps, marine charts, Asia, the Americas, Africa, Russia and most of the European states. However, it also contains sections on specific subjects, most notably one comprising thirty-three manuscript maps relating to the Spanish invasion of Portugal by Domingo de Aguirre (d1805) in 1762. De Aguirre was subsequently appointed to survey and help landscape the royal palaces of Aranjuez, Retiro and the new palace in Madrid in the 1770s and 1780s.

The inventory lists, among others, numerous printed and manuscript maps by the Spanish cartographer Tomás López, world maps by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin and Johann Homann, the Fry-Jefferson Map of Virginia, Nicolas de Fer’s 1720 map of California as well as several of his charts of various parts of South America, a number of charts by Thomas Jeffreys, and J. B. Nollin’s 1740 wall map of Asia. It also includes a complete copy of Isaac Brouckner’s ‘Nouvel Atlas de Marine’ (1749) with each of the charts in it listed individually.

The paper on which the inventory is written has the watermark of a tower encased with the name of the Catalan firm, ‘Guarro’, making it a slight variant of watermarks 501 (1750) and 502 (1770) in O. Valls i Subirá, ‘El Papel y sus filigranos en Catalunya’ (Amsterdam, 1970), and dating to between 1750 and 1770.

Provenance

with early annotations in a different hand suggesting that the manuscript was used to take an inventory of the collection

Image gallery

/