1757 Strachowsky Map of Menorca, Balearic Islands, Spain

This is the rare Bartholomäus Strachowsky's c. 1757 nautical map of the island of Menorca (Minorca) in the Balearic Islands. Menorca, with its strategic positioning in the western Mediterranean, was captured by France one year earlier during the opening salvos of the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), bringing and end to nearly 50 years of British rule.

A Closer Look

The sheet is divided into three maps: a map of the entire island at top, one of the port of Mahon and its approaches (the largest of the three) at left, and a map of Menorca and the Balearic Islands in relation to Spain and North Africa in the Mediterranean Sea at right. The first two maps also serve as nautical charts, noting anchorages and soundings. The map of the island indicates settlements, forts, roads, terrain, and topography. The map of Mahon and its environs (oriented towards the southwest) provides detailed information on the city and its defenses, especially St. Philip's Castle (Fort St. Philippe). An index at the top-right corresponds to numbers on the Mahon map, while below the maps is a lengthy textual description of the fort and the port of Mahon.

Menorca in the Seven Years' War

During the Seven Years' War, Menorca became a major point of conflict between Britain and France. The island had been under British control since 1708, formally ceded by Spain in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) after the War of the Spanish Succession. One of the major acts of the British was to move the island's capital to Mahon and strengthen its defenses, though these had largely fallen into disrepair by the time of the Seven Years' War. In 1756, at the very beginning of the war, France launched a surprise invasion of Menorca, besieging Fort St. Philippe and forcing its surrender after several weeks and a failed British relief effort, weakening Britain's position in the western Mediterranean in the process.

The fall of Menorca was portrayed as a disaster in Britain and Admiral Byng, leader of the failed relief effort, was controversially executed for a perceived lack of effort and urgency in breaking the French siege. France maintained control of Mahon and Menorca until the end of the conflict, whereupon it was returned to Britain in the 1763 Treaty of Paris (traded for Guadeloupe). The island then changed hands in 1781 - 1782, when British forces were again besieged at Fort St. Philippe, this time by French and Spanish forces, and forced to surrender. In the Peace of Paris (1783), Britain ceded the island to Spain but occupied it again in 1798 during the French Revolutionary Wars, finally and definitively returning it to Spain in 1802.

Publication History and Census

This sheet was engraved by Bartholomäus Strachowsky, with the largest map of Mahon being prepared by one 'de Lasthin' or 'de Losthin.' As the title indicates, it is based on Bellin's map ('Carte des Isles de Majorque Minorque et Yvice,' Rumsey 12059.057) that appeared in the maritime atlas L' Hydrographie Francoise…. Strachowsky not only updated Bellin's work but enlarged and emphasized the map of Mahon, shifting its orientation in the process. The impetus for producing the map in Wroclaw (then under Prussian rule) is less clear, though the island's fate would have been of considerable concern to Britain's wartime ally, Prussia. The present map is undated, but from context, it can be dated to c. 1757. It is very rare, with its only institutional holding being at the Provincial Public Library (Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna) in Opolu.