Saxton Map of Bedfordshire
An early decorative map of Bedfordshire engraved by William Kip based on the earlier maps by Elizabethan cartographer Christopher Saxton first published in the 1607 edition of William Camden’s Britannia. This example is from plate 15 (in the bottom left corner) published in 1637. Embellished with compass rose and decorative cartouche.
Britannia, first published in 1586, was one of the most popular and influential books of the period. The work of the Elizabethan antiquarian, William Camden (1551-1623), it was a detailed historical and topographical description of Great Britain. Its patriotic sentiments, in particular, both appealed to and generated the growing sense of nationalism that was coursing through late Tudor / early Stuart society. Between 1607 and 1637, county maps engraved by William Kip and William Hole, and based largely on Saxton’s surveys, were added.
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