Penisola dell’Indo di qua del Gange

1692

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 18 x 24.25 in (45.5 x 61.5 cm)
Sheet size: 18.75 x 26.5 in (47.5 x 67.5 cm)

Coronelli’s magnificent 1692 double-page engraving of peninsular India—among the earliest and most accurate depictions of Sri Lanka, enriched with superb Venetian baroque cartouche work and harbour insets

This striking copper-engraved map represents one of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli’s most important contributions to the mapping of South Asia, published in Venice in 1692 as part of his monumental Atlante Veneto..

The present map offers a highly detailed portrayal of India south of the Tropic of Cancer, extending from Gujarat and the Deccan down the Coromandel and Malabar coasts to Cape Comorin, and is accompanied by two splendid inset plans:

1. The island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) — described as “one of (if not) the earliest map[s] to depict Sri Lanka correctly”.
2. Trincomalee Harbour, titled “Port and Island of the Sun in the Great Bay of Cotiary”, one of the most important natural harbours of the Indian Ocean.

The map bears a sumptuous dedication to Ottavio Manin, Procurator of San Marco, and includes a baroque cartouche with a cherub holding a coat of arms, reflecting the ceremonial splendour that characterised Coronelli’s cartographic work.

Coronelli — Franciscan friar, encyclopaedist, cosmographer to the Republic of Venice, and the most celebrated Italian mapmaker of his time — achieved international fame for his globes, including the monumental 12.5-foot globes produced for Louis XIV, which sparked a European fashion for Coronelli’s work. He travelled across Europe making globes for the elite, and his Atlante Veneto (1690–1705), a 13-volume universal geographical description, remains a masterwork of baroque Venetian cartography.

The present map is demonstrative of Coronelli’s precision, clarity, and typographic balance — sharply engraved coastlines, finely articulated mountain chains, and extensive inland topography that reflects an unusually advanced understanding of the subcontinent for the late seventeenth century. His delineation of Sri Lanka is particularly notable for its accuracy at a time when many European maps still carried distortions inherited from classical or Portuguese sources.

Large, complete, and wide-margined examples of this double-page map are increasingly scarce, and the survival of clean impressions with the insets crisp and legible and the dedication cartouche intact is especially desirable.

NON-EXPORTABLE

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