Conspectus recens et accuratus magnae partis Lacus ladogae et Sinus Finnici…

Title

Conspectus recens et accuratus magnae partis Lacus ladogae et Sinus Finnici…

Description

Map showing St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga, with a magnificent title cartouche and a compass rose. Written in Cyrillic and Latin scripts

ca. 1741

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

Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland form the gateway between the Russian interior and the Baltic Sea. Since the Middle Ages, this region has been crossed by an important trade route linking Novgorod with Northern Europe. During the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it was a contested frontier between Sweden and Russia. Following Russia's victories in the Great Northern War, the area gained considerable strategic importance. With the founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703 on the Gulf of Finland, a new political and economic center emerged, securing Russia's permanent access to the Baltic Sea.