|
||
|
|
|
|
This elegantly engraved map depicts the Iberian Peninsula in its entirety, including the Balearic Islands, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the adjacent coasts of northern Africa and southern France.
The map includes a very unusual feature, as on the east side of the east coast of Spain, an outline is shown indicating where the location of the east coast of Spain as depicted by Nicolas Sanson, the French Royal mapmaker in the middle of the 17th Century.
The cartouche, lavishly illustrated with allegorical figures, cherubs, and classical motifs, dedicates the map to John Lord Somers, then Baron of Evesham, an influential English statesman and patron of science. Mercury, the god of commerce and travel, presides at the top of the cartouche, while other figures symbolize agriculture, the sea, and the fruits of exploration. This iconography emphasizes the geopolitical and commercial importance of the Iberian Peninsula to British interests during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which culminated in the Treaty of Utrecht in the same year this map was published.
Topographically, the map displays a dense network of cities, rivers, and mountain ranges, with particular emphasis on internal political divisions and regional identities.
John Senex (1678-1740) was one of the foremost mapmakers in England in the early eighteenth century. He was also a surveyor, globemaker, and geographer. As a young man, he was apprenticed to Robert Clavell, a bookseller. He worked with several mapmakers over the course of his career, including Jeremiah Seller and Charles Price. In 1728, Senex was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, a rarity for mapmakers. The Fellowship reflects his career-long association as engraver to the Society and publisher of maps by Edmund Halley, among other luminaries. He is best known for his English Atlas (1714), which remained in print until the 1760s. After his death in 1740 his widow, Mary, carried on the business until 1755. Thereafter, his stock was acquired by William Herbert and Robert Sayer (maps) and James Ferguson (globes).
![[ Spain & Portugal ] Tabula II Europae (Title on Verso)](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/103197.jpg)
![[ Straits of Gibraltar ] Le Detroit de Gibraltar ou sont Exactement Observee La Maree](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/97818.jpg)
![[ Biscaya / Asturias /Leon ] Legionis, Biscaiae et Guipiscoae Typus](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/90556.jpg)
