Atlas Novus sive Tabulae Geographica…

Title

Atlas Novus sive Tabulae Geographica…

Description

Titlepage from the Atlas Novus sive Tabulae Geographica, from M. Seutter

ca. 1730

Artist

Seutter (1678-1757)

Matthias Seutter (1678- 1757) Augsburg was the son of a goldsmith in Augsburg. In 1697, Seutter began his studies in Nuremberg and subsequently worked in the publishing house of Jeremias Wolff in Augsburg. In 1710, he established his own publishing house and print shop. The Seutter publishing house produced a great number of maps, atlases, and globes. However, very few original maps were printed there, as Augsburg at that time had no university and no connection to the fields of mathematics or the natural sciences. Seutter therefore copied the work of other cartographers, making his own engravings based on their models. Over 500 maps were produced in his studio. Seutter's most well-known works are the 1725 "Geographical Atlas or an Accurate Depiction of the Whole World" ("Atlas Geographicus oder Accurate Vorstellung der ganzen Welt") with 46 maps, the 1734 "Large Atlas" ("Grosser Atlas") with 131 maps, and the 1744 pocket atlas "Small Atlas" ("Atlas minor") with 64 maps. Matthäus Seutter died in 1757. Seutter's son Albrecht Karl, his son-in-law Conrad Tobias Lotter, and his business partner Johann Michael Probst ran the printing business for five more years.

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.