Description
“I have seen a country of great beauty and very populous a quantity of church is so numerous as to pass belief, the Kingdom is most rich in the fertility of the soil and by its extensive commerce with all parts of the world.” So enthused the Venetian ambassador Foscarini during a journey through England and onwards north to Scotland in the year 1613 his journey was aided by the latest wonder of the age a detailed pictorial atlas “The Theatre & Empire of Great Britain” drawn by the English map maker John Speed. It was the first atlas to encompass all the counties of Britain and when published during 1611 and 1612 it was destined to become and remain the best-known collection of English County maps. Today Speed’s maps are valued for their amazing ability to combine function with beauty as well as showing towns villages and boundaries as they were during the period of William Shakespeare. He portrayed the first aerial views of many cities and embellished his work with a wealth of heraldic detail and decoration, royal portraits and the illustration of historical battle sites which elevated his craftsmanship into an elaborate work of art. Imagine the differences his maps made to the life of the times for travellers administrators and soldiers . . . the countryside was brought to life before their eyes as Samuel Pepyes remarked in 1662 when searching in the Forest of Dean for sources of timber to build ships for the Navy “Speed’s map there showed me how it lies”. So valuable were maps that in 1627 his atlas could not be purchased for less than 40 shillings an enormous sum and his work remained the supreme achievement in British cartography for a further 150 years.
Our exclusive editions are individually and faithfully reproduced onto a antiqued parchment effect background to impart age. No two counties are remotely similar fascinating absorbing involving and beautiful in their intricate and delicate details astonishing when you consider how the originals were so painstakingly drawn by hand and the circumstances and difficulties under which the maps were compiled and meticulously completed by the skills of a master craftsman, Speed also produced maps of France, Italy, Spain, Africa and China.
