Arrowsmith’s reduction onto one sheet of his six sheet map of Greece.

The reduction covers the same geographical area as the large map, stretching from Corfu in the west to Rhodes in the east, and Cythera in the south to Montenegro in the north. The major change is the additional inset map to the lower left of Crete.

Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1823) was the finest cartographer of his generation. Although he received little formal education it is believed that he was taught some mathematical instruction by William Emerson, an author of several books on the application of mathematics to the area of cartography. Around 1770, Arrowsmith moved to London to seek employment. It is believed that he worked for William Faden before joining John Cary Sr. in the early 1780s. There he provided the measurements for John Cary’s early publication detailing the roads from London to Falmouth, his first signed work. Arrowsmith set up on his own in 1790 and over the next thirty years produced some of the most beautiful and elegant maps of the era.

Rare we are only able to trace three institutional examples: University of Leeds; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; and the University of Michigan.