Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

Striking old color example of Nolin's map of Africa, offered here in the early second edition, corrected and augmented by Tillemon.

Nolin's map is regarded as a significant advance in the European cartography of Africa and "represents a tremendous step forward in its use of additional placenames reflecting up-to-date knowledge of European explorations and permanent settlements" (Betz). The two Ptolemaic lakes, shown on most earlier maps, are almost completely excluded, aside from part of the western Lake Zaire. In the area of Central Africa is a text oval, purposely placed by Nolin to demonstrate that the Ptolemaic model of two southern Africa lakes as the source of the Nile are based more on myth than fact.

The text annotations describe the explorations of Pedro Paez and Manuel de Almeida, along with the Nile River as it was known in ancient times. While the Blue Nile is shown correctly as flowing from Lake Tana, the White Nile is not shown at all, and the Niger River appears straight, running east to west.

Fine example of Nolin's map of Africa, compiled and engraved in Paris in collaboration with Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, who was then working in Paris on grand Celestial and Terrestial Globe for the King of France. The cartographic content is largely identical to Coronelli's two-sheet map of Africa, which was likely issued shortly after Nolin's map. The map is beautifully engraved and exhibits the detail and fine craftsmanship which is characteristic of Nolin's work. This example, in full original color, is of particular note.

Condition Description
Full original color. Minor soiling.
Reference
Betz, R.L. The Mapping of Africa: A Cartobibliography of Printed Maps of the African Continent to 1700, pp. 432-3;Norwich, O.I. Maps of Africa p. 101;Tooley, R.V. Map Collectors’ Series (Fifith Volume) No. 48: Maps of Africa. p. 33.
Jean-Baptiste Nolin Biography

Jean-Baptiste Nolin (ca. 1657-1708) was a French engraver who worked at the turn of the eighteenth century. Initially trained by Francois de Poilly, his artistic skills caught the eye of Vincenzo Coronelli when the latter was working in France. Coronelli encouraged the young Nolin to engrave his own maps, which he began to do. 

Whereas Nolin was a skilled engraver, he was not an original geographer. He also had a flair for business, adopting monikers like the Geographer to the Duke of Orelans and Engerver to King XIV. He, like many of his contemporaries, borrowed liberally from existing maps. In Nolin’s case, he depended especially on the works of Coronelli and Jean-Nicholas de Tralage, the Sieur de Tillemon. This practice eventually caught Nolin in one of the largest geography scandals of the eighteenth century.

In 1700, Nolin published a large world map which was seen by Claude Delisle, father of the premier mapmaker of his age, Guillaume Delisle. Claude recognized Nolin’s map as being based in part on his son’s work. Guillaume had been working on a manuscript globe for Louis Boucherat, the chancellor of France, with exclusive information about the shape of California and the mouth of the Mississippi River. This information was printed on Nolin’s map. The court ruled in the Delisles’ favor after six years. Nolin had to stop producing that map, but he continued to make others.

Calling Nolin a plagiarist is unfair, as he was engaged in a practice that practically every geographer adopted at the time. Sources were few and copyright laws weak or nonexistent. Nolin’s maps are engraved with considerable skill and are aesthetically engaging.

Nolin’s son, also Jean-Baptiste (1686-1762), continued his father’s business.