The empire of Monomotapa & coast of cafres

This miniature map from 1688 was produced by Robert Morden a highly regarded English Cartographer. The map was published in one of the earliest books with maps of the world that was engraved,printed and published in England; the London meridian was used for the first time on a map of South Africa.

Robert Morden was a commercially successful cartographer, geographer, publisher, bookseller and globe make. He collaborated with many other publishers to produce high quality atlases.This map was published in Geography Rectified, a geographical text that included sixty-four miniature maps in the first edition; 

Between 1688 and1691, the maps were also issued folded, numbered and published in an atlas without text. Morden also produced playing cards with miniature maps of the world. The Southern Africa map is one of four maps in the book not signed by Morden; it is printed above explanatory text . The map clearly is based on and very similar to Pierre Duval's map, but the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope is much improved.

  Morden has also added Mossel and Alagoa (Algoa) Bays on the south-east coast. The pages with all three states of the map have the incorrectly spelled MONOMOTOPA in the letterpress headline.

This map is in fine condition.