Lot 24. DURY, Andrew.

A fine example, with aristocratic provenance, of Dury’s London edition of two wall-maps of North-Western Italy: Borgonio’s Carta corografica degli Stati di S.M. il Re di Sardegna and Chaffrion’s Carta dela rivera de Genoa.

Giovanni Tomasso Borgonio (1620-83) was a Piedmontese military engineer active in the Kingdom of Savoy in the late 1770s and early 1680s, who made a series of important surveys of towns of the region, many published in Blaeu’s Town Books of Italy (the Savoy (Sabaudia) volumes, Amsterdam 1682). He is however best known for his remarkable survey of the Kingdom of Sardinia, published as Carta generale de’ Stati di S.A.R. in 1680.
José Chaffrion (1653-98), a Spanish military engineer, was active in Piedmont in the 1680s, producing a fine map of Liguria in 1685. Both are outstanding examples of the surveyors’ art, both are very rare in the original printing and both had a huge (and long-term) influence on the cartography of the two regions, neither map really superseded for over a century.

When Andrew Dury (d. 1777), a London publisher of French Huguenot extraction, decided to issue maps of these two regions, these were still the best maps available to him – and this London edition catches in full the quality and detail of the originals.

The Borgonio map was dedicated to John, Earl of Bute, some-time favourite of and Prime Minister to King George III; however, he enjoyed a spectacular fall from grace when he lost the ear of the king, and the absence, in this copy, of the sheet bearing the dedication to him (which has no map content) may reflect the politics of the day, as there is no evidence of its later removal.

Description

Folio (54.9 x 37.5cm). General title-page in English and French and printed in red and black, 2-page index, 2-page explanations, 11 (of 12) douple-page map-sheets incl. index map, double-page index map and 8 map-sheets, all maps hand-coloured in outline, 2 leaves of text and 2 index leaves in French, printed on rectos only; without the double-page engraved dedication, title a bit browned and spotted, first map of the republic of Genoa lightly stained, a few maps very lightly browned. Contemporary half russia; extremities lightly rubbed, corners bumped.

Provenance: Hugh Lupus, 1st Duke of Westminster (1825-1899; bookplate, gilt crest at base of spine).

Bibliography

Cox II, p.406; Shirley BL T.DURY-3a.