Johann Baptist Homann, Regni Mexicani seu Novae Hispaniae, Ludovicianae, N. Angliae …, 1730

New World Colonial Powers

This map is Homann’s version of Guillaume Delisle’s landmark map of 1703, “Carte du Mexique et de la Floride,” which served as the prototype for all significant European maps of New Spain in the 18th-century. Homann and his contemporaries “reproduced the geographical information contained in the Delisle map,” wrote Martin and Martin, “but they abandoned the great French cartographer’s plain, almost sterile style, for a much heavier, lavish … ornamentation characteristic of late Baroque period art. Opulent sea battles, ornate cartouches, and extravagant scenery were employed to fill blank spaces that disturbed minds less scientific than Delisle’s.”

The map depicts North America from the British colonies of the eastern seaboard west to New Mexico and south to include Panama, Venezuela, and the entire West Indies archipelago, with each area of European territorial claims colored separately. This map is especially fine for its depiction of the course of the Mississippi, the Great Lakes region, and the Rio Grande valley of “Nova Mexico,” showing Spanish and Indian settlements as far north as the fabled city of “Quivira.” The tracks of the Spanish galleons and routes to Havana are shown.

Homann’s finely engraved thematic cartouches and pictorial vignettes became the hallmark of his style. His depictions of New World natives, flora and fauna, and colonial pursuits are especially engaging, as in the present map. Here, the title cartouche contains allegorical figures representing the New World, accompanied by symbols of natural bounty. Homann also presents an elaborate scene of silver mining and a raging battle between fleets of galleons in the “Mar del Zur.”

In 1715, Johann Baptist Homann became a member the Prussian Academy of Sciences and was appointed Imperial Geographer of the Holy Roman Empire. The following year, Homann published what is considered to be his masterpiece, the Grosser Atlas über die Ganze Welt (Grand Atlas of all the World, 1716), and dedicated the work to Charles VI, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. The present map was produced for Homann’s Grand Atlas and exhibits all the hallmarks of his style—expert engraving, exceptional detail, and a highly embellished allegorical title cartouche—making it a very rich example of mapmaking from the Baroque period. Homann founded a dynasty that would last into the nineteenth century. Following a long period of Dutch domination in the business of cartography, the Homann family became the most important map publishers in Germany. After the founder’s death in 1724, the firm continued under the direction of his son until 1730 and was then bequeathed to his heirs on the condition that it trade under the name of Homann Heirs. Maps under this imprint continued to exert a wide influence on map publishing in Germany.

Refs.: LeGear, 5966; Martin and Martin, p. 93, pl. 17; Phillips, Atlases, 586, 622; Phillips, Maps, p. 578.