From an original in our possession this is a high quality giclee image of the famous Blaeu map published in 1654. Based on the cartography of Timothy Pont and with substantial additions and reworking by Robert Gordon of Straloch ( founder of Robert Gordon's College). A highly decorative map with the quality of engraving for which Blaeu was renowned.
Image size: 20.75*16 inches
Printed on Epson Enhanced Matt paper with 80 year lightfast inks.
TIMOTHY PONT (c.1565 – c.1614)
“A fantastic task” was how Christopher Smout, in A History of the Scottish People,1560-1830 described Timothy Pont’s attempt to map Scotland in the late 16th century.
The eldest son of the Rev Robert Pont (1525-1606), who held the highest offices in the Scottish church and in the law, Timothy Pont was a graduate of St Andrews University in 1583 and later in 1600 he was appointed minister of the church at Dunnet in Caithness. Very little is known of his life but his work in mapping Scotland was a prodigious feat.
It is assumed that he started the work immediately after graduation, possibly inspired by Christopher Saxton’s Atlas of England and Wales which was published in 1579.
It is difficult to grasp the scale of his achievement or the difficulties he would have faced. Robert Gordon wrote of him:
“..with small means and no favouring patron, he undertook the whole of this task..: he travelled on foot right through the whole of this kingdom, as no one before him had done; he visited all the islands, occupied for the most part by inhabitants hostile and uncivilised, and with a language different from our own; being often stripped, as he told me, by the fierce robbers, and suffering not seldom all the hardships of the dangerous journey, nevertheless at no time was he overcome by the difficulties, nor was he disheartened. But when, having returned, he prepared to publish the results of his labours, he was defeated by the greed of the printers and booksellers, and so could not reach his goal. While awaiting better times, untimely death took him away.”
Despite the work probably having been completed by 1596, the first map A New Description of Lothian and Linlithquo Be T. Pont published by the the Dutch engraver Jodocus Hondius did not appear until 1630.
The significant publication of the bulk of his work had to await Volume V of the Atlas Novus by Joan Blaeu the famous Dutch cartographer in 1654. This atlas contained 49 separate maps of Scotland. The first 2 show the entire country, ancient and modern, whilst the remaining 46 plates cover most of Scotland in 47 regional maps.
As a result Scotland became one of the best mapped countries in Europe.
Two other people played a key role in this achievement : Joan Blaeu and Robert Gordon of Straloch.
Joan Blaeu (1596 – 1673)
Willem Janszoon Blaeu , who was born in Alkmaar in 1571 and trained in astronomy and the sciences by Tycho Brahe, the celebrated Danish astronomer, founded a business in Amsterdam in 1599 as a globe and instrument maker. It was not long before the business expanded, publishing maps, topographical works and books of sea charts as well as constructing globes.
His ambitious plan was to publish a major atlas to include the most up-to date maps of the whole of the known world but progress on so vast a project was slow and not until he bought between 30 and 40 plates of the Mercator Atlas from Jodocus Hondius II to add to his own collection was he able to publish, in 1630, a 60-map volume with the title Atlantis Appendix.
It was another 5 years before the the first 2 volumes of his planned world atlas, Atlas Novus or the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were issued.
In 1638 Blaeu died and the sons Joan and Cornelis took over, but Cornelis died in 1642 leaving Joan in sole control. He eventually completed the whole series of 6 volumes in 1655.
As soon as it was finished he began preparing the even larger work, the Atlas Maior, which reached publication in 1662 in 11 volumes and contained nearly 600 double-page maps and 3000 pags of text. This was, and indeed remains, the most magnificent work of its kind ever produced. Perhaps its geographical content was not as up-to-date or as accurate as its author could have wished, but any deficiencies in that direction were more than compensated for by the fine engraving and colouring, the elaborate cartouches and pictorial and heraldic detail and especially the splendid calligraphy.
The extensive involvement of the Blaeus in seeking out the Pont manuscripts and pushing those involved to enable publication including Robert Gordon of Straloch was further confirmed by the discovery in 1967 in the National Library of Scotland of 15 letters from the Blaeus to Sir John Scot of Scotstatvet.
ROBERT GORDON OF STRALOCH (1580 – 1661)
Robert Gordon of Straloch in Aberdeenshire was enlisted to assist Blaeu in preparing the Pont manuscripts for publication. A graduate of Aberdeen University, who had also studied in Paris, he was described by a contemporary as “ one of the ablest men in Scotland in the mathematical faculties”, and by Blaeu as “doyen of geographers”.
His interest in maps dated from his youth; an astolabe with his name, the date 1597, and one of its tablets with the latitude of Straloch , still exists.
He started work on the Pont manuscripts before 1636, and it took him until 1648 to complete.
The extent of his contribution is the subject of academic debate but Stone maintains that other than in relation to his home territory of the northeast where he certainly added significantly to the original Pont maps his contribution was to re-work rather than to revise the information provided by Pont.
Sources;
The Pont Manuscript Maps of Scotland: Jeffrey C. Stone. Map Collector Publications 1989
Antique Maps: Carl Moreland & David Bannister. Phaidon1989
The Early Maps of Scotland Vol 1: D.G.Moir. The Royal Scottish Geographical Society. 1973
