National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 74 | April 2005


Maps Collection: French, Austrian and Italian Perspectives of the World and South-East Asia (1670–1805)

Peter Anich, 1723–1766
Gores for Excelsae repraesentationi regio-Caesareae Oenipontanae ... [Innsbruch, 1758]
Maps Collection, RM 3856 Part 1
[CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

The National Library has recently acquired an interesting 1805 scientific map of the world, Nouvelle Mappe-monde … aux dernières observations astronomiques, by the French mapmaker Fauvet. Dedicated ‘A la Jeunesse’ (‘to the young’), the map illustrates time differences and the sun’s path throughout the year. Not surprisingly, the time zones marked on the map are computed from the Paris meridian, with instructions on how to calculate time differences included beneath the title.

The continents are outlined in colour, and major cities and areas are named. The southern landmasses of Australia, New Guinea and New Zealand are outlined in pale green. Australia (named ‘Nouvelle Hollande’) is shown with the narrowest of seaways separating ‘Isle de Diemen’ (Tasmania) from the mainland. The tropics, lines of equinoxes and zodiac signs are also shown. (MAP RM 3855)

Peter Anich, 1723–1766
Polar calottes and horizon ring for Excelsae repraesentationi regio-Caesareae Oenipontanae ... [Innsbruch, 1758]
Maps Collection, RM 3856 Part 2
[CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

Another recent map acquisition not only takes us back in time, it provides a neat mid-eighteenth century 3D view of the world. This set of gores, polar calottes and horizon ring paper for a 20 cm terrestrial globe, was compiled in 1758 by Austrian farmer and cartographer, Peter Anich. Self-taught, with little formal education, Anich developed a lifelong interest in the earth and heavens. His natural talents gained the attention of a learned Innsbruck monk, Ignaz Weinhart, who instructed him in the principles of arithmetic and geometry, mechanics and astronomy. By 1756 he had completed a clockwork 3’4” celestial globe, modeled on a sphere by the great celestial cartographer Doppelmayr. He completed a number of other globes and maps of his native area—the Tyrol—before he died in 1766, aged 43.

The 12 gores cut in readiness to be mounted on a globe base show the path of the equinox and feature a chronogram not usually found on maps of the period. This Austrian work, written in Latin, is also notable because it’s from a period that was mostly dominated by French and British cartographers.

On the gores, Anich depicts Australia’s coastline across the northern part of the continent, with Cape York disappearing into an oversized Papua New Guinea. The eastern coastline, which the French had speculated about as early as 1700, is non-existent while further south Tasman’s discoveries of Tasmania and New Zealand are evident. (Map RM 3856)

Stepping further back in time, and increasing in scale, the third notable recent acquisition is a map by Italian priest and cartographer Ioannis Battista Nicolosi. His 1671 map on four adjoining sheets covers South-East, Central and South Asia.

In 1652 Nicolosi was commissioned by the Propaganda Fide (Congregation for the Propogation of the Faith) in Rome to create Italy's first atlas of the world. Issued in 1660, the atlas contained maps of the continents, each on four sheets. Criticised for relying more on myth than geographic knowledge, and for the sparse detail on a map of this scale (c.1:9,300000), Nicolosi’s pictorial relief of South-East Asia is still engaging, and most likely represents the landscape as it was known at the time. (Map RM 3858)

All three map acquisitions help our understanding of the world, its history and the evolution of its representation. Anich’s work is the first of his acquired by the National Library, and with the others complements the maps already held in the collection.
—Teresa Donnellan, Senior Map Librarian, Maps Collection, tdonnell@nla.gov.au

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