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Nice example of this scarce Spanish language map of Asia
El Atlas Abreviado -- The First Spanish Language World Atlas
Francisco de Afferden’s El Atlas abreviado . . . , first published in 1696/97, holds a singular place in the history of Iberian cartography as the earliest pocket-sized world atlas written entirely in Castilian. Conceived at a moment when the Spanish crown still relied on the engravers of the Spanish Netherlands for high-quality copperplate work, the little volume distilled the larger folio atlases of Nicolas de Fer and Jacques Peeters into a binding small enough to fit a travelling gentleman’s coat pocket. Its title-page announces that it was issued “at the expense of Francisco Laso, bookseller, opposite San Felipe el Real in Madrid,” revealing both its intended market and the commercial network that funneled Northern-European cartography into Castile. The privilege of publication was also granted in Madrid.
In reality, the atlas never saw a Madrid press. The first edition was printed in Antwerp by Jan Duren in late 1696 or early 1697, with further impressions by the Verdussen family in 1709 and 1711. Because contemporary Spanish workshops lacked the specialised copper-engraving capacity necessary for atlases, Laso financed the project abroad and imported the finished sheets for sale in Madrid. The persistent Madrid imprint on the title-page later misled bibliographers into describing the work as a Spanish imprint, but printing records, watermarks, and typographic analysis confirm its Antwerp origin.
Although often styled “the first Spanish world atlas,” the Atlas abreviado is more precisely the first world atlas in the Spanish language; the honor of the first world atlas printed in Spain belongs to Tomás López’s Atlas elemental moderno of 1792, produced in his own Madrid engraving workshop. Even so, Afferden’s little volume remains a milestone: it brought contemporary geographic knowledge to a Castilian readership, demonstrated the commercial viability of vernacular atlases in Spain, and pointed the way toward the eventual establishment of domestic map-engraving in the late Enlightenment.
Rarity
Early editions of El Atlas abreviado . . . and the individual maps are rare on the market.
![Nova Totius Asiae Tabula per Ioannem de Ram [With Rare Frederick De Wit Letterpress Gazetteer for Asia: Index Alphabetica Asiae.]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/107738.jpg)
