Acquired From: Leen Helmink
Colouring: Uncoloured
Condition: Very Good
Confirmed: Yes
Date Acquired: 20/10/2020
Description: This engraved title page introduces Volume II (Tomo Secondo) of the 1661 edition of Robert Dudleys DellArcano del Mare, retitled Arcano del Mare in this reissue. The second edition reorganised the original three-volume atlas (164647) into two uniformly sized folio volumes. The title page was printed in Florence by Francesco Onofri and Jacopo Bagnoni.nAt the centre is a celestial celestial diagram in the form of a stylised animal, identified above as Orsa Minore (Ursa Minor). The figure is marked with seven labeled stars, designated A to G, each followed by the name Magini, referencing the astronomical work of Giovanni Antonio Magini, whose star catalogues and ephemerides influenced seventeenth-century navigation. Near the tail, the label F. Stella Guida identifies the guiding star, and G. Magini, Polo Fixo marks the Pole Star (Polaris), the fixed point in the northern sky essential for determining latitude at sea. The engraving fuses allegory with astronomy: the animal formpossibly a bear or celestial beastrepresents the constellation Ursa Minor, long associated with Polaris. By placing this symbolic figure on the title page of Tomo Secondo, Dudley and his engraver Antonio Francesco Lucini foreground the importance of stellar navigation, positioning the Pole Star as both a literal and symbolic guide to the contents that follow.
Engraver: Lucini, Antonio Francesco
First published: Arcano del mare Florence: Francesco Onofri and Jacopo Bagnoni, 1661
Mapmaker: Dudley, Robert (1574-1649)
Price: 1,000
Primary Category: Titlepage
Purchase Reference: Ledger 2022
Rarity: R2 Very rare – one or two copies appear on the market
References: On the East Indies maps see, David Parry, The Cartography of the East Indian Islands: Insulae Indiae Orientalis (London: Countrywide Editions, 2005), 13749.
Technique: Copper Engraving
This state: First
Laisser un commentaire