JANSSONIUS, JAN: MAP OF FRIULI, KARST, CARNIOLA AND ISTRIA

This Mercator's map comes from the  Mercator-Hondius atlas entitled «Atlas Minor» printed in Amsterdam at Jan Janssonius’s printing house. Following the death of the famous Dutch cartographer Gerhard Mercator the Hondius family bought the copperplates of Mercator's Atlas carrying on the work of the map-making business and publishing a series of editions of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas to which they added new maps. The map shows the Italian region Friuli, Karst, Carniola and Istria with its coastal part under the rule of the Republic of Venice. The boundaries of the Principality of Pazin (central Istria) that formed part of the Hapsburg Monarchy are indicated. The map is dominated by the representation of the lake of Cerkniško jezero, which is largely oversized. The representation of the Kvarner islands Krk and Cres is full of inaccuracies, for instance, the island Cres is drawn as if composed of three islands - Cres (Cherso Insula), Porozine – in fact the settlement on the landward coast of Cres (Perosina Insula) and Beli (Cao), a settlement on the eastern part of the island of Cres. The map's title is placed in its lower left corner in a late-baroque cartouche typical of Mercator's maps. A mileage scale is expressed in Italian miles.