Cartographic serendipity: finding Soldan's atlas of Peru

by: Michael Layland

The author trained as a mapmaker in the Royal Engineers. He is currently writing a book on how the Amazon was discovered, explored, and mapped. He is a member of the Royal Geographical Society and the International Map Collectors' Society and lives in Victoria, Canada

THE EDITOR OF TMC recently invited responses to the question, "do people collect maps for reasons of nurture or nature?" Her question got me thinking about what really motivates the map collector and I recalled a high point in the twenty-five years of building my collection. It was an instance of serendipity which reminded me that, no matter how serious one's quest or how studious one's research, the thrill of the hunt is also a major driving force for collectors.

For me, map collecting has provided both intellectual challenge and the occasional uplift - along with many blows - to my emotions. These dual stimulations have made collecting and studying old maps such a rewarding, satisfying pursuit. There is an added pleasure, that of armchair travel - in space and time.

The memory triggered by all this reflection concerned my search for a particular map. I was in Lima, Peru, in the late 1970s. Having worked in South America for several years, I had focused my map collection not only on that continent, but on a single region - the Amazon basin. Lima in those days was a special place for collectors of old maps and books. The exchange rate favoured hard currencies and the occasional rarity did emerge from old family libraries. However, such treasures were often ruined by the ravages of damp, mildew, and bookworm beetles.

In my regular rounds of secondhand book dealers and junk shops, I had come across loose copies of folio-sized, mid-nineteenth century maps of regions of Peru, marked in the corner "Paz Soldan." Without an appreciative corps of map collectors to encourage dealers into better care of loose maps, such ephemera was usually badly damaged. Their only hope for survival would be between the covers of their original binding. I started looking for Paz Soldan's Atlas geografico del Peru, published in 1865.

Searching the Auction Records, I discovered that in 1970 - on July 28, the anniversary of Peru's independence - the London auctioneer, Phillips, had sold two copies of the atlas. One went for £8, the other for £20. The book was listed in the standard references.[1]

I also learned from my network of dealers in Lima that complete copies of the atlas were, by then, very scarce, but I asked them to keep an eye out for it. One evening, I called on Henry, who had been one of my most fruitful sources. He was an elderly ex- patriate who hoarded an untidy, unprofitable hodge-podge of artifacts and curiosities in a shop on the outskirts of Lima. Henry claimed to do business supplying film crews with props, but trade was clearly slow. He dealt in old books "by the yard" for decorating interior sets, occasionally trawling up something worthwhile, often without realising it. I asked Henry about the Paz Soldan atlas. He did not know of it, but scribbled a note in a scruffy exercise book. "How much would you pay for one?" He asked. "Oh, about fifty or sixty dollars," I supposed. We chatted awhile and I was about to leave and he to lock up for the night, when in sidled a furtive figure carrying a large, flat parcel wrapped in brown paper.

It was Lucho, one of Henry's "pickers"- freelance middle-men in the business of recycling unusual "stuff." "What nonsense have you brought me this time Lucho?" Henry demanded, anxious to get home. "Una geográfia, senor. Con mapas"- a reply that grabbed my attention. I paused in the doorway and watched as Lucho unwrapped the package. To my astonishment, it was Paz Soldan's Atlas! And from what I could tell, it appeared reasonably sound. I murmured to Henry, in English, that this was the book we had just discussed, and that he should negotiate with Lucho to buy it. After a soft exchange of muttering and nods, Lucho departed, happy with unusually swift payment. Henry charged me $60, so I imagine he made a fair margin, too. I hurried home, clutching my treasure.

The title page from the rare atlas of Peru by Paz Soldan. (By courtesy of the author)

Back in my flat, and telling myself I had probably just wasted the money, I removed the brown paper wrapping from the book. I checked first for wormholes - another atlas I had bought the previous year, Codazzi's Venezuela of 1840, had been riddled as though peppered at close range by a shotgun. But this one had no holes. A couple of the signatures were a little loose on their threads and the corners of the covers were a bit rubbed, but, in general, the atlas was in good condition. Next, I checked the contents against the index. It was complete - all sixty-eight plates called for were present and there was no missing text. I had a prize worth far more than what I had paid, an important addition to my collection and invaluable for my research.

The size of the atlas was large folio, one-and-a-half inches thick. Its most dramatic plate was XLII, a six-foot long, fold-out panorama of the Paz Soldan family's home city of Arequipa. The panorama and several other illustrations were engraved based on a revolutionary new technology - photography. The black and white image had been lithographed against a pale yellow printed background.

The cartography included a general map of Peru and a mineralogical map (both hand coloured), maps of all fourteen departments and provinces as well as city and harbour plans. Of greatest interest to me, was the map of "Provincia litoral de Loreto," the lowlands of the Amazon basin. Loreto extended from the Pongo de Manseriche, as far as the border with Brazil. Manseriche is the eight-mile long gorge where the Maranon, the principal feeder-stream of the great river, pours off the Andean plateau. The map was printed as two double, fold-out plates (LIII and LIV). In his notes, Paz Soldan explains why he used the term "litoral" - meaning coastal - for Loreto, located as it is in the heart of the continent. "Because there are ports on the shores of a sea in motion, as Haenke called the Amazon, and crossed in all directions by navigable rivers."

The Loreto map was a truly international effort. Paz Soldan consulted the work of Royal Navy explorers Smyth, Lower, and Maw, the US Navy's Herndon, the Brazilian Souza, the German von Humboldt, and de la Condamine, a Frenchman. His main source was the field notes of an Italian exile, Antonio Raimondi.

Raimondi went on to become famous in European scientific circles. In 1876, Clements Markham, about to become president of the Royal Geographical Society, described him as being "in the first rank not only of geographers, but of naturalists and geologists…. Peru is fortunate in having secured the services of a man of such untiring energy as Antonio Raimondi."