Beschreibung:

BLAEU, Joan [Atlas maior, sive cosmographia blaviana, qua solum, salum, coelum, accuratissime describuntur]. Geographia, quae est cosmographiae Blaviana pars prima [...]. Amsterdam, Heirs J. Blaeu, vols in-f° : 1 allegorical frontispiece, (of engraved title pages, (of letterpress titles, (of engraved maps, plans, views and plates, mostly double-paged and all mounted on lvs, finely hand-coloured, partially coated with gum arabic and heigthened in gold (occasionally browned margins or lvs with some traces of use, slight spotting and a few marginal stains or tears, vol. 1 : flyleaves slightly used, letterpress title-page placed after "Candido Lectori Salutem", pasted lf on A "Hyparctica" changed in "Arctica" as originally by Blaeu, some minor restaurations and reinforced margins, vol. 2 : some foxing, reinforced margin, vol. 3 : some splitted or restaured foldings, trimmed edges at and 4S, marginal water stain at 5Areinforced edges and restaured vows of maps and vol. 4 : restaured margins throughout the whole vol., traces of pasted paper at M with loss of text, ms. notes on and 3K, vol. 5 : marginal wormholes at first lvs, vol. 6 : 2T2 placed after T, vol. 8 : pasted lv on L, vol. 9 : changed order of pls and vol. : marginal water stain at inner corner throughout several lvs, index at the end of the vol.). Contemporary Dutch vellum bindings : white ivory vellum over pasteboard, decorated with gilt stamped corners, frames of double gold fillets and gilt centerpiece stamp, spine with gilt rolled stamps, gilt edges (missing ties and shelf mark on all vols, vol. 3 and 4 : slightly damaged and loose spines, vol. 6 : loose joint, small lack on spine, vol. : small stain, vol. : damaged spine with wormholes, lower turn-ins missing). Excellent copy of the first (Latin) edition of Blaeu's "Atlas Maior", consisting of volumes, published between and and described as "the greatest and finest atlas ever published". The "Atlas Maior" has been produced in c. different sets, with most of the volumes also reprinted. This is an early set characterised by the date "on the titles of all volumes and the 6th volume deriving from the "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum [...]" published by Joan Blaeu in Also the presence of German titles on some of the maps indicates the early edition when the stock of maps was not yet depleted, since later copies were made in Latin only. Blaeu bought additional maps from other publishers, such as Antonius Sanderus, Caspar Barlaeus and Caspar Danckwerth. Volume I. Arctic, Norway and Denmark. maps. Final edition "C", including the maps of Schleswig with Latin titles except for Helgoland, Femeren and Arroe for which Blaeu used up his stock of maps titled in German. Volume II. Sweden, Russia, Poland, Southeastern Europe, and Greece. maps. Edition A with German Eszett in the running footers A-M of Russia. Volume III. Germania. maps. Final edition "C". Volume IV. The Low Countries. maps. Volume V. England. maps. As usually edition 2:303Yc with text and maps identical to 2:first published in Volume VI. Scotland and Ireland, maps. Edition 2:401Qe, first published in with new letterpress title and new title label for Scotland, but without a title page for Scotland and with the unsigned variant of the "Letter to sir John Scott". Volume VII. France and Switzerland. (of maps. Edition with "Dioecesis Ebroicensis" bound between 2G1 and 2G2 and without the maps "Gouvernement General du Lyonnois" and "La Bresse Chalonnoise". Volume VIII. Italy, maps. Edition A without dedication to Carolus Emanuel II, duke of Savoy. Volume IX. Spain and Africa. maps. Edition A. Volume X. Asia. + maps. Edition with letterpress title page, and Atlas of China, edition 2:503B. Volume XI. America. maps. Some copies might contain 4 allegorical frontispieces but as stated by Peter van der Krogt (II, p. : "Except for the general title page, those prints were not used for all atlasses". Ref. van der Krogt II [2:601], p. Provenance : Bibliotheca Tongerlensis, (handwritten