Imperii Persici

Significant map of the Persian Empire, the first to show the Caspian Sea on a north south axis with geographical corrections based on French and Middle Eastern sources.

Pieter Schenk was the patriarch of a map publishing firm which lasted well into the 18th century. The core of his business was re-issuing plates by previous Dutch cartographic masters, notably Johannes Jansson but c.1705, he also issued an atlas of maps which integrated new French geographical information, particularly from the Sanson family of cartographers.

This map of the Persian Empire is significant for several reasons. It is the first map to break from orthodox 17th century geography of the country especially in the mapping of the south coast and most notably by the swivelling of the Caspian Sea from an east west axis to a north south axis. Geographically the empire stretches from the River Tigris in the west to Kandahar in modern Afghanistan in the east. Its easternmost neighbour is marked as the Moghul Empire. The Ottoman Empire is the western neighbouring power.

Schenk names his sources on the title as “Arabian and Persian geographers” as compiled and translated by Adrian Reland. The dedication also mentions Reland, who was the foremost Dutch orientalist of his day. In 1705, he was Professor of Oriental languages at the University of Utrecht and was able to read Persian. He was also a polymath, a published poet and an expert in Hebrew antiquities. His first academic appointment was as Professor of Physics and Metaphysics at the University of Harderwijk.

The dedicatee on the panel situated on the lower right corner was another extraordinary individual, Nicolaes Witzen: a lifelong devotee of eastern Russian history and geography, Witzen was mayor of Amsterdam no fewer than thirteen times, He was a personal friend of Czar Peter the Great and facilitated his visits to English and Dutch shipyards during Peter’s Grand Tour of Europe. Most relevantly to the map, he was the author of the most authoritative map of Siberia and eastern Asia for the next hundred years. His small portrait is present on the dedication.

Original colour. [MEAST4544]