The Map of Hungary

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

In the borders to either side of this map of Hungary are eight costume illustrations for various types of Hungarian people of the early 17th century. Along the upper border are four views of the cities: Presburch (Bratislava, now Slovakia), Ofen (Buda, the western part of Budapest, Hungary), Comorro (Komárno, now Slovakia) and Raab (Gyõr, Hungary). To the lower right the scale is given in ‘the common Hungarian miles’.

The detailed and decorative map of Hungary has English text on the reverse, which describes Hungary, as known to the English at the beginning of the 17th Century. The text is in both English and Latin and at the foot of the map are the Latin words: ‘Sculptum apud Abrahamum Goos’ (Engraved after Abraham Goos).

John Speed was an historian and cartographer from Farndon in Cheshire. He published the theological works ‘A direction to finde all those names expressed in that large table of genealogies of scripture, lately gathered’ (1595) and ‘A Clowd of Witnesses: and they the Holy Genealogies of the Sacred Scriptures’ (1616). He also produced an atlas titled ‘The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine’ (1610), which was the first attempt at an English atlas on a grand scale and the first atlas to include a set of county maps, consistently showing territorial divisions. By 1625 he had lost his sight. He died at the age of 77.

Places

Hungary

Subjects

axe, map (as Subject), townscape/cityscape, river, man, woman, dress, coat of arms, citadel

Materials & Techniques

engraving, coloured engraving

Artist

Abraham Goos (c.1590 - 1643)
John Speed (1551/2 - 1629)

Title

The Map of Hungary

Date

published 1626

Medium

Coloured engraving

Acquisition

Purchased from Francis Edwards, November 1949

GAC number

1002