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Description

A finely engraved political map of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, published shortly after the Treaty of Bucharest (1812), which formally ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–12 and redrew key borders across the Balkans. Compiled and drawn by Johann Christoph Matthias Reinecke, then director of the Geographisches Institut at Weimar, the map captures the Ottoman-controlled regions of Southeastern Europe in vivid detail.

The map stretches from the Gulf of Taranto and southern Italy to the Black Sea and Bessarabia, and from the Adriatic south to Crete (labeled Candia), incorporating modern-day Greece, Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Romania, and parts of western Turkey. Reinecke emphasizes provincial boundaries in color and overlays a dense topography of fortified towns, roads, rivers, and regional identifiers, many of them with dual classical and Ottoman toponyms. Notably, Serbia is demarcated in a bold yellow wash, underscoring its quasi-autonomous status under Ottoman suzerainty following the Serbian uprisings of 1804–1815.

The imprint states that the map was revised “nach dem Frieden von Bukarest,” acknowledging the major shift in control of Bessarabia to the Russian Empire and the establishment of new boundaries along the Prut River.

Reinecke’s map offers a sharply defined view of Ottoman Europe at a moment of profound transition, just before the Greek War of Independence (1821) and a cascade of nationalist uprisings that would gradually dismember the Ottoman holdings in Europe. It serves as a visual register of a fading imperial order and a resource of particular importance for understanding the early 19th-century reshaping of the Balkan Peninsula.

Condition Description
Original hand-color in outline. Engraving on 19th-century paper. Soiling in the margins.
Iohann Matthias Christoph Reinecke Biography

Johann Christoph Matthias Reinecke (1768-1818) was a German scientist. He worked in a variety of fields, most notably cartography and paleontology. A true polymath, he spoke eight languages and also wrote poems and songs. He produced a variety of maps in his career, including a series for the Geographical Institute in Weimar.