Sir Robert Dudley (1574-1649), Extremely Scarce Map of the English Channel

Robert Dudley. CARTA QUINTA GENERALE DI EUROPA. [Florence], [circa 1646]. A copperplate engraving by Antonio Francesco Lucini; from Dudley's atlas Arcano del Mare; the map featuring southern England from Middlesex down to Cornwall and including London, as well as Normandy and Brittany on the French side; with a compass rose as well as a title cartouche in the lower right corner; presented matted and in a lovely wood frame. Phillips Atlases 457.

Sight size 15 1/8 x 18 7/8 in.; Sheet size (at widest) 16 1/8 x 19 7/8 in.; Frame dimensions 22 3/4 x 26 1/8 in.

From the Collection of Priscilla Schavran, Holly Springs, North Carolina

Sir Robert Dudley was an English cartographer, explorer, and ship builder, and the son of the 1st Earl of Leicester. He settled in Florence, Italy, where he worked for most of his life, and in his 70s he published the Arcano del Mare (The Secret of the Sea), the first sea atlas to include the entire globe. Unique and important in many ways, his atlas is especially well-known for the time-consuming and spectacular engraved charts by Lucini with engravings that Burden states "represent the finest of Italian capabilities." Burden notes, too, that the atlas was "the first printed English nautical atlas," "[a]rguably the most sumptuous ever produced," and that it "was the first atlas to use Mercator's projection throughout, and the earliest to show the prevailing winds, currents and magnetic deviation" (The Mapping of North America, p. 338).

With foxing, creasing down the center, a few subtle areas of darkening to the paper, and two vertical and one horizontal fold line; an examination of the verso shows most margins trimmed with a portion of the left margin left wide, and with two closed tears at the left margin; attached at upper edge with two strips of tape on verso; not laid down; some chips to the frame. A nice example of this extremely scarce map.