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Chapter 2
THE PRINTING OF OLD MAPS
In a later chapter we pose and attempt to answer - a number of questions which come to mind when considering the purchase of old maps. To forestall at least some of these questions it is necessary to consider various aspects of map making, not, we hope, too technically, but in sufficient detail to enable a prospect- ive buyer to have some idea of what to look for. The main methods of printing which concern us are:
- Relief processes (woodcuts and wood engravings) in which the design to be printed is cut in relief on a woodblock base.
- Intaglio processes (line engraving, dry-point, etch- ing, stipple engraving, aquatint, mezzotint) in which the required design is cut on a metal plate by an engraving tool or is bitten into the plate by acid.
- Surface processes (lithography) in which the de- sign is drawn on a specially prepared surface.
The earliest technique for making prints and maps involved transferring a design cut in relief on wood- blocks to paper, known as block prints. In this method of printing the design was drawn on the smooth flat surface of a plank of wood such as sycamore or beech, the unwanted background being cut awav with a knife or gouge. The 'relief portions of the block were then inked and paper applied under pressure against the block, leaving the impression of the design. In China it was the classical form of printing used at least as far back as the eighth century au and possibly much earlier, reaching its peak at the time of the Sung dynasty between the years 960 and 1280. In Europe, however, the earliest dated block prints which have survived were executed soon after the year 1400 in the Central German states where there was a strong tradition of wood carving.
Woodcut prints were made on a comparatively simple type of press using minimum pressure, and since the impression was taken from the relief surface of a block which could be the same thickness as the standard height of type, the method was particularly suitable for book printing, enabling the primer to produce text and illustrations in one operation. In the case of maps, lettering was often cut separately in metal and fitted as necessary to holes in the wooden block. In general, printing from woodblocks gave a bold, simple, black and white finish which, however, could show little subtlety, shading or gradation of tone except perhaps in the hands ot a master, such as Diircr or Holbein. Blocks were used for many years, though with use the design gradually lost its first clarity and crispness, a fact which, in itself, can be a valuable clue to dating. Maps were often brought up to date by 'infilling' parts of the woodblock and re-cutting, and if necessary type could easily be removed and re-set. In the case of wood engravings the design was cut into the hard end-grain of the wood instead of the setter edge surfaces of a plank and this gave a finer and more lasting base. In the century trom about 1450 to i 550 it was to he expected that printers in such centres of geographical knowledge as Nuremberg, Augsburg, Basic and Strassburg, where the technique had a long .ind flourishing history, should turn to the use of woodcuts rather than to the newlv introduced Italian method of copper engraving, and it followed that most of the maps in this period were included in books as p.in of the text and were not printed as separate sheets. Round about 1550, however, the centre of map production moved away from Germany to Italy where, especially in Rome, Venice and Florence, copper t/n^r.ivini; had long been in use in the print-sellers' trade ,inJ its general adoption for printing maps was ;i natural step. In consequence, from the middle of the century, fewer and fewer woodcut maps appeared and engraving on copper became general with emphasis on the production of sheet maps. There was a revival of woodblock priming in the mid nineteenth century when it proved an effective method of producing illustrations of news items for weekly magazines and maps for encyclo- paedias.
LINE ENGRAVING
Engraving is a method of printing which was first used in the fifteenth century and is still used today, notably for printing banknotes and some postage stamps. Starting with a metal plate - usually copper, but latterly (around 18 $o) steel - the engraver cuts into the metal, in mirror image, the design which is to be printed. The inked plate is passed through two rollers rather like a mangle with a piece of dampened paper on top of it; the paper bearing the printed impression derived from the ink-filled recesses of the plate is then removed. One of the characteristics of prints produced in this way is that the printed lines stand proud on the surface of the paper; this can be felt quite plainly by lightly running a finger over the surface of a banknote. Another distinct- ive feature of old engravings is the 'plate mark* normally present on the unprinted border, caused by the pressure of the edges of the metal plate during printing. Metal plates were often kept in use for a very long time and, in fact, some of the original plates for sporting prints by Henry Mkcn (fl. 1816-51) and others are still being printed today. A few of the plates for John Speed*s maps were in use 150 years after they first appeared, later engravers having updated them by beating out the comparatively soft copper base and re-cutting with new detail. Alterations made in this manner arc a way of dating maps and they can make a fascinating study for the collector.
LITHOGRAPHY
Lithography is a 'planographic* process of printing from a surface which is neither raised nor recessed as opposed to woodcuts where the design appears in * relief, or line engravings where the design is cut into the surface ('intaglio*). The process, based on the antipathy of water and grease, was discovered in 1796 and therefore has only been used for comparatively 'modern' maps. It was found that by using greasy chalk or tallow to draw an image on the surface of a suitably treated piece of limestone, the greasy image would repel moisture, whereas the other parts of the stone's surface would accept it. When inked with a roller the wet surface repelled the ink but the greasy image accepted it. Paper applied with equal pressure to the inked surface produced a printed image ~ in reverse. In practice the image was drawn in reverse or transferred onto the stone's surface. By the use of separate stones for different colours, multi-coloured prints could be obtained provided that great care was taken over the precise colour registration of each colourstone. The lithographic process was not used to any great extent for quantity production until 1820, and not mech- anized until 1860. Present-day methods of lithography do, of course, use different materials and methods, although the principle antipathy of oil and water - remains the same.
COLOURING AND CONVENTIONAL SIGNS
Setting aside manuscript maps, all earlv maps were primed in black and white, although there are examples of maps dated 1511 on which place names were printed in red. Map makers soon discovered that colouring helped to sell their products and maps were advertised for sale as "coloured or plain*. In consequence engraved maps were frequently coloured by hand immediately before issue, but to colour large numbers was a slow and expensive process and many were sold uncolourcd. Traditional methods used on earlier manuscript maps governed the way colourists worked and the basic colours used changed very little over the cen- turies - forests, woods and estates in green, hills in brown or black, towns in red, the sea, lakes and rivers in indigo and so on. Armorial bearings were usually carefully painted, the colourist using a recognized heraldic code. Cartouches, compass roses, ships, sea monsters and human figures gave the map painter ample scope to use his imagination, although to some extent the colours of these, too, were governed by the fashions of the period. Nevertheless, although the colours used over the years did not change greatly, obviously style and fashion did, reflecting the ages in which the maps were printed. Before about 1550 the sea was usually represented by swirling lines, then stippling became the vogue and later still a wash of plain colour was used. In very early maps, towns were shown disproportionately large and were indicated by towered castles and house roofs but after the first quarter of the sixteenth century the castle symbols were replaced by church spires or towers. In most woodcut maps hills were shown by using caterpillar-like lines which in the later i50os gave way to picturesque, gently rising mounds - then towards the end of the seventeenth century the first attempts were made to give a true indication of height and slope by means of appropriate shading. Maps were often dominated by elaborate cartouches giving the title, the cartographer, the dedication and perhaps details of scale. Those on woodcuts were quite plain and simple but on engraved maps they became more and more elaborate through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; in later years they were less formal, passing through baroque and rococco phases but often incorporating many aspects of the life of the times, especially scenes in tropical lands.
PAPER USED FOR OLD MAPS
When the fragility of maps is considered, it is remark- able that so many have survived over three or four hundred years, and we must admire the quality of the hand-made paper on which they were produced and the splendid bindings of the early 'Atlases'. Apart from those manuscript maps and charts produced on vellum or parchment, most early maps which collectors arc likely to find were printed on strong, thick hand-made paper from France, Germany and Switzerland and the finest of all from the Ancona area of Northern Italy. In England paper was made on a limited scale during the sixteenth century and, in general, French paper was imported until about 1610 when good home-produced handmade paper became available in quantity. Practi- cally all early paper bore a watermark which can be a useful guide in dating a map although the evidence of such marks should be treated with caution. A batch of paper might have been used for a limited number of prints over perhaps as long as twenty or thirty years but, considered in conjunction with other clues, a date of printing can be sometimes closely determined. The absence of a watermark does not necessarily imply that a map is a fake nor does it have any effect on value, The size of paper on which maps were produced was almost standard and was conditioned by the size of the trays used for making paper by hand - 28 x 24 in. -- and by the size of the presses available. In the early days of paper-making, handmade paper was produced almost entirely from linen and rags pulped in water. After thorough mixing a closc-mcshcd wire tray was dipped into the pulp and sufficient lifted out to give the required thickness of paper - the water was drained off, the sheet subsequently dried between layers of felt and then hung to dry. The wire mesh of the tray. into which the watermark motif was also worked, produced the vertical and horizontal lines apparent on holding the paper up to the light.
TECHNICAL TERMS
It may be useful to note here some of the technical terms used in the map trade which, incidentally, differ in some degree from those common in the book trade. Let it be said at once that there is no general agreement among carto-bibliographcrs on some of these definitions but the authors of the present work suggest those given below which they have found to be generally acceptable.
- A proof, which is a print taken before engraving is completed.
- An impression, which is a single print: impressions showing differences in the engraving on a plate are said to be in different "states'.
- An edition, which is the term likely to concern most of us, consists of the impressions made from a distinct state of a plate.
- A re-issue. In an endeavour to simplify matters this term has been used in the biographical notes in Part II of this work to cover any edition, issue, state or whatever, printed after the first edition.
Book terms:
- INCUNABULUM/A: Latin: 'things in the cradle' - a term applied arbitrarily to books printed up to the year 1500.
- COLOPHON, a note, often in the form of, or accom- panied by, a device or mark, giving particulars of the printer and perhaps the date and place of printing, found on the end page of early printed books.
The following Latin terms are often used on maps themselves to indicate:
- the cartographer or draughtsman', auctore, composuit, delincavit (del., dclin.), dcscripsit, invenit.
- the engraver, caelavit, engr., fecit, (fee.), incidit, incideme, sculpsit (sec., sculp.).
- the printer or publishers apud., excudic (cxcud., exc.), ex officina, formis, lith., sumptibus.
- the points of the compass
- Oriens = the rising sun, the East;
- Occidens = the setting sun, the West;
- Meridio = the midday sun, the South;
- Scptentriosa = the seven stars of the Great Bear, the North.