Vechtae fundis, villis, praetoriis, atque priscis arcibus triumphantis, Tabula exqisitissima edita a Nic. Vischeri….

Title

Vechtae fundis, villis, praetoriis, atque priscis arcibus triumphantis, Tabula exqisitissima edita a Nic. Vischeri….

Description

Titlepage of N. Vischer,Vechtae fundis

ca. 1610

Artist

Visscher (1618-1679)

Nicolaes Visscher I (1618 -1679) Amsterdam was a Dutch engraver, cartographer and publisher. He belonged to the Dutch art dealer, engraver and publisher dynasty founded by his father Claes Janszoon Visscher. After his father's death in 1652, he took over his father's art publishing house and initially continued publishing the atlases and maps that his father had begun. He then began publishing works under his own name. Together with his son Nicolaes Visscher II (1649-1702), he engraved a large number of printing plates, further replenishing the publisher's stock. The atlases "Atlas Contractus", "Atlas Minor" and "Germania Inferior" contain about 170 plates. After N. Visscher's death, some of Visscher's copper plates passed to Petrus Schenk II (1693-1775), who used them for numerous reprints.

Historical Description

The title page is one of the most important parts of the "front matter" or "preliminaries" of a book, as the data on it and its verso (together known as the "title leaf") are used to establish the "title proper and usually, though not necessarily, the statement of responsibility and the data relating to publication".This determines the way the book is cited in library catalogs and academic references. The title page often shows the title of the work, the person or body responsible for its intellectual content, and the imprint, which contains the name and address of the book's publisher and its date of publication. Particularly in paperback editions it may contain a shorter title than the cover or lack a descriptive subtitle. Further information about the publication of the book, including its copyright information, is frequently printed on the verso of the title page. The first printed books, or incunabula, did not have title pages: the text simply begins on the first page, and the book is often identified by the initial words—the incipit—of the text proper. Maps were usually published in atlases. And atlases were books with titles. And, again, titles were individual pieces of art. A publisher emphazised the importance of a book he published with a spectacular entrée. Usually the pictures of an atlas title page pertained in general to the subject matter: Measuring instruments, mythologigal, astronomical, religious, scientific, allegorical hints and facts were united in a composition which depicted the pride of progress in knowledge. An atlas title page often is just one superb artistic and jubilant cartouche.