Girolamo Ruscelli's 1561 Egypt and North East Africa

I attended the last Ottawa Antiquarian Book Fair. This is not a really big fair and the focus really is much more on books than maps, but there are the occasional vendors who have a good selection worth spending some time looking at.

I ended up buying two maps from a vendor I saw there (I actually didn't buy at the fair but contacted him months later to see if he still had them) who I don't think specialized in maps at all, but had a real range of materials for sale, the maps I chose being the apparent exception to the rule.

Here's the map, and what I've learned about it follows:

This is a projection of north east Africa, primarily Egypt, printed in 1561 by Girolamo Ruscelli.

Ruscelli himself was an interesting guy. He was into a bit of everything, including cartography, and apparently published a 'book of secrets' which aimed to answer some basic scientific questions, provide advice on matters related to science and perhaps dabbled in some alchemy as well.

This map is one of a number he published in his revision of Ptolemy's Geography. There's a link to it, with a high quality image here, where you can see it's on sale for USD$125 (I paid much less for it, which is very satisfying).

There is much that I don't know about this region, and it's difficult for me to comment too heavily on the map, but when I saw it, having been to Egypt, I knew I wanted it.

The map has some interesting elements, for example, showing off the cities of Cairo and Alexandria. Having a strangely representative delta of the Nile, and showing what appears to be some sizable islands in the Nile

The map also seems to show the Nile having three southern branches, different than the two (Blue and While Niles). The rivers on the map are not particularly well labeled, however, so it's hard to be sure what they refer to.



This is one of two maps by the same cartographer I bought from the same vendor and it's interesting for its age, the history behind it and it's producer and of course the subject matter. Egypt was and is a source of fascination to many for many reasons. I'm lucky to have such an early representation of it.

Hand-Drawn Maps of the Battle of Quebec

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has a great story about one of the treasures of the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The story explains that the Museum holds in its archives hand-drawn battle-maps, made by the British Army after their victory on the Plains of Abraham in 1759. A great video, explaining the map and some of its details can be found in the article linked to above.

In short, the maps were probably drawn as a report from the British Army back to London about the events of the battle. Such post-action maps were, apparently, typical. This one, shows the site of Quebec City including some features which are still present, such as the walls of the city. The map also shows the location of the various French and British armies at the battle and how they were arrayed to fight.

I had a hard time finding quality images of these maps anywhere, so the ones below are screen-caps taken from the CBC video and website.

This image, which for some reason is somewhat dark, shows a partially zoomed in image of the map. You can see the British formations in red and the French in blue. You can also make out geographic features like hills, and the formidable cliffs the British had to climb for their attack. The walls of the Citadel of Quebec can be seen in the east and a number of roads, some of which remain in use today. 

Here is a more zoomed out image of the same map shown above. It shows a legend, but the image is too low quality to read it. 

This image above is a close-up of the image of the armies lined up for battle.

One of the details that seems most interesting about this map is that it was donated to the Museum anonymously. Who had such a fascinating historic document in their possession for all those years without anybody knowing--such that the donor could be anonymous?

From what I can tell, the maps--which are hugely significant in Canadian history--are gorgeous, but they are not on display for the public. Apparently, they are too fragile and so remain a hidden treasure of the Museum. Alas...