Add MS 70640 A

NORTHUMBERLAND WORLD MAP: [untitled chart of the world]; circa 1614-1615 (circa 1618-1619) . No scale given. Large quarter compass roses in the upper left and lower right hand corners, in ink and colours, and gold, this last being left unfinished. The Equator and Tropics are ruled in red, and the graticule of latitude and longitude in sepia. Major place names are written mainly in Latin in small capitals, lesser place names in a small neat cursive hand, which has faded to illegibility in places. There are two small vertical binding slots near the top and bottom of the fold which show that the map was originally mounted on boards. The map shows signs of a small alteration at the southern tip of South America, where Tierra del Fuego has been redrawn, and an extremely faint legend 'William Schoutens Straight', and the date 1616 written in. The news of Schouten's discoveries was brought back to Europe in July 1617 and published in 1618. The unfinished compass rose suggests that the map was intended for private use, rather than for display. The interest in recent discoveries, and also in mathematics (implied by the map being drawn on some form of projection where other English charts of the period are plane charts), points to the circle of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland (b.1564, d.1632), who was probably the map's original owner. During his imprisonment in the Tower 1605-1621 for alleged conspiracy in the Gunpowder Plot, he maintained contacts with mathematicians and was himself known as 'Henry the Wizard'. A fellow prisoner of the Earl in the Tower was the writer and explorer Sir Walter Ralegh. It has been claimed that Edward Wright, the mathematician (d. 1615), who developed the Mercator projection and produced printed maps based on it in 1599 and 1610, was involved in the production of the map: however a case may also be made for the involvement of Thomas Harriot, who was one of the Earl's pensioners, and may have worked in collaboration with a chartmaker from the 'Thames School', who were active from the 1590s. Harriot's work at this period remained unpublished and the details are obscure, but some of his working papers have survived as Add. 6782-6789, and Harley 6001, 6002, and 6083; these may throw light on the background of the map. Purchased from Sotheby's with the aid of a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 29 Nov. 1990, lot 220.

Ink, watercolours and gold on vellum. 395 x 795mm.