A handsome example of John Speed’s map of Yorkshire, from the first edition of The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, engraved in Amsterdam by Jodocus Hondius and published in London in 1610. This is the first separately published map of the county to be produced on a consistent national scale, and one of the most influential English cartographic works of the seventeenth century.
The map divides Yorkshire into its three traditional Ridings (North, East, and West) and further into Wapentakes, with scores of place-names and topographical features rendered in fine detail. Hills are shown in pictorial hachure, with moors and woods carefully delineated, and a profusion of towns, rivers, and bridges are named. The city of York appears near the center with its cathedral shown pictorially, reflecting its central ecclesiastical and political importance.
The visual program is distinctively Jacobean: the Royal Arms of James I occupy the upper right, flanked by the motto Dieu et mon droit; a compass rose, sailing ship, and strapwork mileage scale ornament the surrounding sea and frame.
Speed’s work represented a turning point in English cartography, uniting geographic survey with national and regional identity.
John Speed (1551 or '52 - 28 July 1629) was the best known English mapmaker of the Stuart period. Speed came to mapmaking late in life, producing his first maps in the 1590s and entering the trade in earnest when he was almost 60 years old.
John Speed's fame, which continues to this day, lies with two atlases, The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (first published 1612), and the Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World (1627). While The Theatre ... started as solely a county atlas, it grew into an impressive world atlas with the inclusion of the Prospect in 1627. The plates for the atlas passed through many hands in the 17th century, and the book finally reached its apotheosis in 1676 when it was published by Thomas Bassett and Richard Chiswell, with a number of important maps added for the first time.