Imperium Japonicum per sexaginta et sex regiones digestum atque ex ipsorum Japonensium mappis descriptum - Seutter, Matthaeus, 1678-1756. ([S.l. : s.n.)
Facsimile reproduction of Matthias Seutter's map of Japan (c.1740), an early European map of Japan based, in part, on Japanese sources. His map, according to the text on the map itself, was based primarily on two sources. Firstly, a 1715 map by Dutch Orientalist, Adrien Reland, indicating the details of the coast of southwest Japan from Nagasaki to Hirado. Secondly, a Japanese map found in the library of a former director of the Dutch East India Company and from which this map derives the feudal provinces into which all Japan was divided, naming each with their Japanese characters. This is the first Western map to include Sino-Japanese characters. Decoratively, the map includes examples of Japanese dress, architecture, ceramics and a boat. At its center sit Mercury, god of merchants, and either Minerva, goddess of art and crafts, or Ceres, goddess of agricultural abundance. Above them is an angel symbolising the Christian mission. It also includes an inset map of Nagasaki, part of which was open to Dutch merchants from 1560 onwards, while the rest of Japan was not. Limited relief is shown pictorially.
Inset: Conspectus urbis Nangasacki et insulae ante illam sitae in qua sedes est Batavorium. Scale [1:673,137]
Includes text and ill.
Map no. 85 from: Atlas novus sive tabulae geographicae totius orbis faciem, partes, imperia, regna et provincias exhibente ... / a Matthaeo Seutter, S.C.M.G. Augustae Vindelicorum. Premier tome. Augsburg, [Germany : M. Seutter, 1742 or later].
Shirley, Rodney. Maps in the atlases of the British Library ; T-SEU-2a
Also available online
Keywords: Japan -- Maps -- Early works to 1800 -- Facsimiles