Carte de l'Islande, Pour servir a la Continuation de l'Histoire generale des Voyages.

1768 Bellin / Horrebow / Knoff map of Iceland

Publication Date: 1768

About this Item

Very good. Margin extended at insertion point, else excellent. Size 12 x 15 Inches. This is J. N. Bellin's 1768 edition of Niels Horrebow's map of Iceland, based on the first trigonometrical survey of the country. A Closer Look The base survey was initiated by Magnús Arason in 1728. His 1730 death caused the work to be inherited by Norwegian officer Thomas Hans Henrik Knoff. Knoff completed the survey in 1734, correcting Arason's original. It was the first attempt to survey the island completely, rather than simply amending earlier maps. Knoff produced seven district maps and one map of the entire island. Unfortunately, since Iceland was a Danish possession, when Knoff's sent the maps to Norway, a power struggle followed. Knoff was ordered by the Danish king to return all copies and drafts, and so they did not see the light of day for several decades. In 1752, Niels Horrebow published Tilforladelige Efterretninger om Island (The Natural History of Iceland). It was accompanied by a map of Iceland based on Knoff, the use for which Horrebow obtained the king's permission. In this form, the map was considerably reduced, and its quality suffered from inexpert copper engraving, introducing errors. For example, despite being roughly correct in its location, the lake Myvatn is grossly overestimated in size. Despite the flaws, the map represents a vast improvement over the 16th-century publication of Bishop Guđbrand Ţorláksson's map by Ortelius. Horrebow's printing of the Knoff data represented the first published trigonometrical survey of Iceland. Horrebow's book was published in a German edition in 1753, English in 1758, and French in 1764. The work appeared excerpted Prévost's Histoire Générale des Voyages , for which Bellin produced an edition of the map. This was added to Prévost in 1768. Publication History and Census Bellin's map was engraved by for inclusion the 1768 first edition of the eighteenth volume of Prevost's Histoire Ge?ne?rale des Voyages . We are aware of two states of the map, the second of which includes in the lower right a pagination note for the map's inclusion in volume 17 of the octavo edition of the Histoire . The present example conforms to this second state, which seems to have appeared in 1780. The Histoire is well represented in institutional collections; the map is neglected in OCLC, appearing in only four listings, but it does appear on the market from time to time. References: OCLC 633106474.

Seller Inventory # Iceland-horrebow-1768

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Carte de l'Islande, Pour servir a la Continuation de l'Histoire generale des Voyages.
• Publication Date: 1768
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • NORWAY-SWEDEN-DENMARK