Title
LA VILLA DE MADRID, CORTE DE LOS REYES CATOLICOS DE ESPANNA / F. de Wit Excudit Amstlodami.
Creator
Wit, Frederick de, 1629-1706, publisher.
Publication details
[Amsterdam] : [Frederick de Wit], [around 1657]
Physical details
1 print : etching and engraving ; platemark 46.9 x 72.7 cm, on sheet 52.4 x 78 cm
Description
Bird's-eye view of Madrid from the South, with Manzanares River on the left, Paseo del Prado on the right, allegory of Fame holding two trumpets above and scale and key to the print below.
Place
Madrid (Spain)
Additional information
Regarded as the earliest known bird's-eye view of Madrid, there is no consensus about the authorship and date of this print. In recent years, it has been identified with a lost map of the Spanish capital produced by Antonio Manzelli around 1622, although this attribution is rejected by Felipe Pereda on the grounds of chronology, since some of the buildings depicted were not built until the 1630s. Jose Manuel Barbeito has explained these anachronisms as resulting from the use of designs by the architect Juan Gomez de Mora to depict buildings that would be completed years later, in some cases following different designs. The view was dated 1635 by Molina Campuzano and 1622 by Matilla Tascon. For two impressions of the same view with no publisher's name and blank cartouche, see Maps C.25.b.13. and Maps * 18840.(1.). The former appeared in Illustriorum Hispaniae Urbium Tabulae ..., Amsterdam, [1657?], printed by Johannes Janssonius.
Shelfmark
Maps K.Top.73.9.