Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr's map of the world c.1720 based on astronomical observations, was in advance of its time in scientific content. Here, Rodney Shirley, author of Mapping of the World, Early Printed Maps of the British Isles 1477-1650 and its' recent sequel Printed Maps of the British Isles 1650-1750, examines this unusual map and shows in a table how accurate were Doppelmayr's calculations for latitude and longitude.

In the first part of this article in Issue 41 of TMC the author, himself a collector of title-pages, looked at the five main types of decorative frontispieces - ornamental, compartmental, architectu¬ral, pictorial and cartographical. Here, he makes a deeper examination of their content which, to use his own words, 'opens up a veritable Pandora's box of influences, subtle meanings and relationships.'

MANY OF THE fields covered in this second part will be familiar to the classicist or art historian but will be relatively new to the majority of amateur map collectors. Indeed, study of the decorative content of maps themselves has received only limited study.

To illustrate the varied content of title-pages I have grouped their main influences under six headings: classical mythology; Renaissance art forms; Christian theology; allegories, images and emblems; symbols of power; science, discovery and exploration.

IN THIS ARTICLE, I shall explain the form and the meaning of the decorative cartographic title-page. using the term 'title-page' loosely to embrace the frontispiece which may also be an integral part of the preliminaries of an atlas or a geographical work with maps. Leaving aside the purely typographical sheet, the engraved title-page nearly always contains messages related to the work's content in symbolical and pictorial form. Sometimes these are far from easy to decipher, requiring a knowledge of the classics, of ancient and period history, of the emblems, images, concepts of the time, and of contemporary discoveries in natural history and science. At this point I must issue a strong disclaimer of my personal qualifications for treading on ground usually reserved for the art connoisseur and historian. But map collecting is fun, especially when its ramifications take the enquirer into uncharted seas.

by Rodney W. Shirley

MOST OF US think of maps as printed sheets of paper. The great majority of maps are indeed reproduced in this way, and paper or vellum has been the natural preferred material first for manuscript maps and then for nearly all printed representations of the earth's surface. There are however a host of interesting maps in alternative materials, sometimes in forms which have a distinct and separate functional use. Among these are tables of silver, glass or wood, coffers and cabinets, floor mosaics, wall coverings and doors, tapestries and screens, ewers and caskets, and dishes or plates of fired porcelain.

The maps described in this article span two hundred years of cartographic development starting in the sixteenth century. During this time map makers experimented with a variety of map projections including the polar projection as described here. Rodney Shirley, who recently became a Senior Civil Servant in London, studies maps in his spare time and what began as mere interest has increased to become a totally absorbing hobby in which he is now an acknowledged expert. He has just finished a full scale carlo-bibliography of printed world maps which it is hoped will be published later this year. Some of the maps noted in his article are extremely large, and so we have illustrated certain parts only rather than attempt to reduce the whole map photographically and lose much of the decorative engraving. 

Rodney Shirley, who is a well known map collector and author of 'Early Printed Maps of the British Isles, 1477-1650: found an unusual composite atlas several years ago. Here he describes how his atlas 'find' came about, his reasons for believing it to have been initiated by Peter Stent and a detailed analysis of the maps it contains. There are still some unanswered questions on the atlas and he would be interested to hear from any reader who owns or knows of anything similar.