Beschreibung:

COLOM, Jacob Aertsz (1600-1673). L’Ardante ou Flamboyante Colomne de la Mer . Amsterdam: Jacob Colom, 1633. First edition with French text of an exceptionally rare maritime atlas covering the coasts of Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal and North Africa. The 43 charts in the present lot are the same as those in the first edition with Dutch text ( De Vyerighe Colom , 1632), with a few minor changes, and include the large folding chart ‘Nieuwe Pascaarte op hare rechte Distantie…’ (chart no.1), which is often missing. The publication of this Pilot guide brought Colom into unfriendly competition with Willem Blaeu, who hastily published a response to Colom’s atlas, including a preface in which he attempts to list its mistakes. De Vyerighe Colom , however, continued to be published for over thirty years. Bound in the section covering the East Coast of England is a 17th-century manuscript chart in French, which appears to show one of the harbours described in the facing printed text. RBH/ABPC record no copies of this edition at auction. WorldCat lists only 3 copies in institutions , at Yale (lacking general title, one part-title, chart nos.1 and 24), Harvard (lacking the general title and chart no.1), and the BnF; Koeman records one further copy at the University Library, Leiden. Koeman J. Col 15. 6 parts in one volume, folio (390 x 255mm). Engraved general title dated 1635, with the figure to the left of the title holding an astrolabe thought to be Colom, also showing celestial and terrestrial globes, gores and instruments of measurement, 6 letterpress part-titles, 43 engraved charts, some folding, volvelle on a8 recto with 4 moveable parts, another on b2 verso with 2 moveable parts, 17th-century manuscript chart in French bound in , numerous woodcut coastal profiles and diagrams in the text (most charts trimmed with minor loss; variable staining; a number of repairs, mainly to margins and corners, most notably to the first 3 leaves; the general title lacking the overslip with French text, but with glue residue suggesting this was lost during washing and restoration, and with a few letters and small lower portion supplied in facsimile; chart no.1 with expert repairs, with portion of coastlines of Spain and North Africa in facsimile, omitting place names; chart no.2 with lower corners supplied in facsimile). Modern binding reusing old vellum, new endpapers (cockled and stained). Provenance : inscription on blank verso of chart XI recording purchase in 1654 – early French manuscript poem on blank verso of chart no.3 – V. Aubry (stamp on first part title and verso of final leaf).