1683 Cantelli da Vignola Map of Southeast Asia: Malay, Singapore, Thailand

Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola (February 22, 1643 - November 30, 1695) was an important Italian cartographer and engraver active in 17th century Italy. Cantelli was born in Montorsello, near Vignola Italy to a prominent local family. After studying literature at the University of Bologna, Cantelli took a position as secretary to the Marquis Obizzi de Ferrara. Eventually Cantelli relocated to Venice where developed an interest in cartography. He later traveled to Paris in the company of the French ambassador where became acquainted with the French cartographer Guillaume Sanson, as well as his contemporaries Jacques-Andre Duval and Michel-Antoin Baudrand. It was most likely the influence of these innovative French cartographers that inspired Cantelli's careful and meticulous approach, in which he based his cartography not just on earlier maps, but also very much in the French style upon accounts written by travelers and merchants regarding actual travel to foreign lands. Back in Italy, Cantelli took service Count Rinieri Marescotti, with whom he traveled extensively throughout Italy, becoming in the process acquainted with the Italian publisher Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi. It is with Rossi that Cantelli began officially publishing his maps. The earliest maps to bear the Cantelli-Rossi imprint date to 1672 and detail the Holy Land, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire. Around 1680 the duo also began to publish the Mercurio Geografico, a large format atlas illustrating all parts of the world in a splendid Italian baroque detail defined by elaborate finely engraved cartouche work, high quality paper, and bold Roman lettering, and dark rich inks. Some have compared his style go that of Giovanni Antonio Magini, another Italian cartographer of the previous generation. Cantelli da Vignola in fact pioneered the Italian style of fine bold engraving that would eventually be embraced and expanded upon by Vincenzo Coronelli. His work drew the attention of Pope Innocent XI and Reggio Francesco II d'Este, the Duke of Modena, both of whom offered him a position as court geographer. Cantelli chose to work with the Due of Modena, in the service of whom he produced numerous maps and well as two large globes. He died in Modena in November of 1695. More by this mapmaker...

Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi (1627 - 1691) was an Italian engraver and printer, active in Rome during the second half of the 17th century. His father, Giuseppe de Rossi (1570 - 1639), was the founder of the most important and active printing press of the 17th century in Rome. The printing press was begun in 1633, by Giuseppe de Rossi, and it passed firstly to Giovanni Giacomo and to his brother Giandomenico (1619 - 1653), and then later to Lorenzo Filippo (1682-?), then Domenico de Rossi (1659 - 1730). Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi was most active between 1638 and 1691 and was to take the company to the height of its success. The artists that he printed the etchings for included Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609 - 1665), Pietro Testa (1612-1650), and Giovan Francesco Grimaldi (1606 – 1680). Cartographically he is best known for producing the maps of Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola and publishing them in his c. 1683 Mercurio Geografico. In 1738 the firm became the Calcografia Camerale, from 1870 until 1945 the Regia Calcografica, and today it is known as the Calcografia Nazionale. The Calcografia Nazionale holds is one of the finest collections of early printing plates and prints in the world. Learn More...

Alexander de Rhodes (March 15, 1593 - November 5, 1660) was a French Jesuit father, mapmaker, historian, and lexicographer active in Vietnam in the early 17th century. It is believed that he may have been of Jewish descent. Rhodes was born in Avignon, France and took Jesuit vows in 1612. He sailed to Macau in 1623 with the intention of joining a mission in Japan. When the Shogun banned missionary activity, Rhodes was redirected to a growing Jesuit mission in Hoi An, near present day Danang, then part of the Champa Kingdom, Chochinchina. Rhodes stated at the mission in Chochinchina mission from December 1624 to July 1627). The Champa Kingdom (Chiampa) in south central Vietnam, and the Tonkin Kingdom around Hanoi, were then at war and travel between the two kingdoms impossible - in fact there was a wall. Rhodes then set sail northward, traveling all the way to Macao, before turning south to the largely unknown Kingdom of Tonkin. There he established the first Jesuit mission in Tonkin. He remained in Tonkin in March 1627. He became one of the first Europeans to become proficient in Vietnamese. In July 1630, the Viet king, Trịnh Trán, accused him of spying for the Nguyễn of the Champa Kingdom and exiled him from Tonkin. More likely his Christian teachings were taking hold in court and threatening the polygamas values of Vietnam. Taking refuge in the regional Jesuit center in Macao, where he composed a history of Chochinchina. When political tensions lessened in 1640, he returned to Tonkin, traveling throughout the country, often in disguise. Rhodes left Vietnam for the last time in 1645, returning to Rome in 1649. Rhodes published two maps, a tiny map measuring 12 x 18 cm for his 1650 history of Tonkin, and in partnership with Pierre Mariette, a much larger and more detailed map published for his 1653 Divers voyages et missions du P. Alexandre de Rhodes. This second map is considered the first significant published European map of Tonkin. Later in life, Rhodes helped to found the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1659. As neither the Portuguese nor the Pope showed interest in the project, Alexandre de Rhodes, with Pope Alexander VII's agreement, found secular volunteers in Paris in the persons of François Pallu and Pierre Lambert de la Motte, the first members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, who were sent to the Far-East as Apostolic vicars. Rhodes was sent on a final missionary voyage, to Persia. He died in Isfahan in 1660 and was buried in the New Julfa Armenian Cemetery. Learn More...