Mexico and Cusco, Antique Maps from "Civitates Orbis Terrarum"

" Mexico and Cusco" , from the collection " Civitates Orbis Terrarum ", Cologne, T. Graminaeus, 1572-1617. 

Beautiful B/W Aquatint,  representing a View of Old Mexico City,  the Aztec Tenochtitlán which was built from 1520, and Cusco , an ancient capital of the Inca Empire which was conquered by the Spanish Pizarro in 1533.   Good conditions , with a small medial hole in correspondence of binding, lightly faded on top, some stains on the bottom.

The “Civitates Orbis Terrarum” (Atlas of Cities of the World) was the second oldest printed atlas in the history of world cartography and the first atlas totally dedicated to topographical views. The first volume of this collection was published at Cologne in 1572; the others following in 1575, 1581, 1588 and 1598. The sixth and final volume appeared in 1617, just before the extensive devastation wreaked by the Thirty Years’ War.

“The most original and magnificent of all city-atlases, which drew on the work of accomplished topographical artists; and…reproduced it in pictorial compositions of great charm and individuality”. R.A.Skelton