Africa ex Magnae Orbis Terrae Descriptione

In the cartouche in the lower left corner is engraved the title: AFRICA EX MAGNAE ORBIS TERRAE DESCRIPTIONE. In the cartouche placed in the lower right-hand corner is the dedication: AL CL.MO S.OR FRANCESCO MORESINI Havendo fatto ridur sotto la presente forma le quatro parte del mondo con molta diligentia, ho voluto anco aggiunger loro questo altro ornamento, ch’è di dedicarle al nome honoratissimo di V.M. Cl.ma la quale come intendendiss.a d’ogni arte nobile acquistera alle mie fatiche qualche splendore .V. M. dunque accettandole benignamente nella sua protettione gradirà insieme nel picciolo dono la mia buona volontà di servirla, et honorarla et con talfine le basio le mani. Di V. M. C.ma affect.mo ser. Donato Rascicottj. Under the scroll we find the signature of the engraver: Iovan Batista Mazza fece. Orientation provided by a rose of thirty-two winds, in which are indicated the cardinal points, the four main winds and four half winds, the north is at the top. Orientation from degree to degree, from 37° 30' south to 37° 30' north latitude and from 315° west to 128° east longitude. Graduation at the equator from 350° west to 90° east.

Map of Africa engraved by Giovani Battista Mazza for the publisher Donato Rascicotti. It belongs to a group of four maps of the continents all signed by the engraver for the same publisher. The map is a copy of the work published by Abraham Ortelius in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), which in turn was based on the model by Giacomo Gastaldi. Dedicated to the Venetian patrician Francesco Morosini, the work is known in a few copies, all identical. However, a second state of the plate is conjectured by scholars, based on the fact that a second state of the map of America is known, belonging to the same series, in which the engraver's signature does not appear. Although this AFRICA is commonly dated, like the other maps of the continents by Rascicotti-Mazza, around 1590, the dedication to Morosini would allow us to circumscribe the realization of the plate around 1585, certainly before the appointment by Sixtus V as bishop of Brescia (September 23, 1585), where he took office only from June 10, 1590. In the dedication, in fact, he is simply called Clarissimo Signor.

Giovanni Battista Mazza was an engraver and printer active in Venice in the last years of the 1500s. With his elegant and precise mark, he engraved several maps, later marketed by Donato Rasciotti, and also a large planisphere by Giuseppe Rosaccio, dated 1597, in which he signed Giovan Battista Mazza venetiano Maestro delle stampe della Zecha de Venetia. Donato Rascicotti was a publisher, merchant and printer. Of Brescian origin but active in Venice, and perhaps also in Bologna and Rome. Sometimes is indicated as Rasciotti and Rosigotti. According to some, he should be identified with Donato Resegato "printer of drawings", arrested in Rome in 1577 on the charge of having stolen drawings from the workshop of Lafreri. In Venice his workshop was at Ponte dei Barettieri.

Example in the first state of two described in Bifolco-Ronca.

Etching and engraving, impressed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, in perfect condition. Very rare.

Literature

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, p. 449, tav. 99, I/II; Almagià (1948): p. 118; cfr. Burden (1996): n. 73; Betz (2007): n. 25; Tooley (1983): n. 72a.