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Description

Nice example of Francisco Coello's map of the Marianas, Carolines, Palau, etc., a collection of maps from the Southwestern Pacific Ocean.

Francisco Coello de Portugal y Quesada (1822-1898), was one of the most important and talented Spanish cartographers of the 19th-century. Born in Jaen, he was accepted into the Special Army Corps of Engineers Academy in Guadalajara. He subsequently joined the Corps of Military Engineers, and served in the First Carlist War (1833-9), and later in Algeria, eventually attaining the rank of colonel. In 1846, he was appointed Director-General of the Corps of Engineers, where he oversaw a series of grand projects that were to dramatically revolutionize the cartography of Spain and her colonial possessions.

Coello worked with the aforementioned Dr. Morata to compile the very best sources to produce scientifically advanced, large-scale maps of Metropolitan Spain and all of her remaining overseas possessions. This mapping project was billed as the Atlas de España y sus posesiones de Ultramar, and from 1848 onwards its maps were issued individually and gradually. The present map of the Philippines was amongst the earliest and most important issues of the atlas. While the project was never fully completed, owing to Coello's death and the advent of the Spanish-American War, by 1898, 46 parts of the atlas had been produced. Nonetheless, the Atlas de España represented an achievement of monumental importance, for it included the first scientifically-produced topographical maps of the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico, amongst other subjects. The maps were also greatly admired for their geographical precision and the high quality of their lithographic production.

Condition Description
Folding into original paper-covered boards.