BLAEU, Guillaume & Jean. - Lot 85

BLAEU, Guillaume & Jean. [Septième volume de la Géographie Blaviane, contenant la première partie du XIV. Livre de l'Europe]. (Amsterdam, Jean Blaeu, 1663). 2 large folio volumes (56 x 34 cm). Contemporary stamped and gilt ivory vellum, spines with 7 ornate nerves, boards decorated with large stamped plates, gilt edges (bindings soiled and sometimes a little cracked, missing pp. 215-216 with map of the Pays et comté de Cambrésis, Carte General Du Lyonnois, title and false title pages, marginal defects including dampening and wormholes affecting the leaves, some browned maps). A handsome, full-color copy of the French volumes of the large Blaeu atlas, in strictly period Dutch gilt vellum. As Van der Krogt points out and in the case of our copy: maps of Switzerland should be found at the end of volume VIII (part 2), but copies circulate separately as an atlas of France alone, without the Swiss part. The set contains 66 beautiful double-page maps, colored at the time; including two rare maps that do not belong to the atlas: -A map of Gaul by Visscher, inserted in the first volume. -A map of the Lake Geneva region in Switzerland, inserted in the second volume, Ducatus Chablasius et Lacus Lemanus Cum Regionibus adjacentibus. Taken from Blaeu sur la Savoie et le Piémont, Theatrum Statuum Regiae Celsitudinis Sabaudiae Ducis, Pedemontii Principis .... Map engraved by Joannes de Broen (1659-1730) and published by Blaeu's heirs after the map by Giovanni Tommaso Borgonio (1620-1683). Separate maps from this work are rarely available on the market. Van der Krogt, II, [2:61].