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Brechiniae (Breconshire) by Johannes Blaeu

£125.00 Approx $157.63, €145.86

Code: 53752



Date: Circa 1665

Latin text pp 296/295.   Copper engraving, original hand colouring.  Royal coats of arms and Prince of Wales feathers.   Ornamental title cartouche, scale of distance, arms. Overall size  64.4cms x  55.8cms. Image size: 506mm x 381mm.  Scale bar in English miles. The text verso in Latin translates in part that ‘The name derives from Prince Brychan, who, the Welsh say, had twenty-four daughers, all of them devout.  This province is larger than Radnor and more mountainous, though it boasts several fertile valleys..The diligent Giraldus Cambrensis, who was archdeacon here 400 years ago, has omitted nothing in his description of this little province, so I shall be silent and allow him to speak’.  Two worm holes in map, at Capel Coyelbryn to the right of the figure above the scale of distance.  Royal coat of arms top right heightened with gold and one gold spot on top of the red marking Brecon.  

"As with all productions of the firm of Blaeu, the engraving and layout are all of the highest standard." Rodney Shirley.
Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) was a prominent Dutch geographer and publisher. The son of a herring merchant, Blaeu studied mathematics and astronomy . He studied instrument and globe making with the  Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Blaeu set up shop in Amsterdam, where he sold instruments and globes, published maps. In 1635, he released his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas novus.

Willem died in 1638. He had two sons, Cornelis (1610-1648) and Joan (1596-1673). Joan trained as a lawyer, but then joined his father’s business. After his father’s death, the brothers took over their father’s shop and Joan took on his work as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. Later in life, Joan would modify and greatly expand his father’s Atlas Novus, eventually releasing his masterpiece, the Atlas Maior, between 1662 and 1672.