1717 Rare Petrini Map of Southeast Asia and the East Indies

This is an exceptionally rare and beautifully engraved 1717 map of Southeast Asia by Neapolitan engraver Paolo Petrini, published in the composite atlas Atlante Partenopeo. Dated 1717, it presents Southeast Asia, the Philippines, and the East Indies after the cartography of the French mapmaker, Nicolas De Fer.

A Closer Look

The map presents the area of southeastern Asia spanning from the Gulf of Bengal in the west to just beyond the Mariana Islands (Isole de Ladri). It reaches from the southern coasts of Japan in the north to the island of Timor in the south, thus encompassing Indonesia, the Philippines, New Guinea, Southern China (with Hainan and Formosa), the kingdom of Siam, Cochinchina, and Cambodia. In the lower right, an attractive cartouche contains the title, imprint, and descriptive text. The image presents a scroll - containing the text - supported between two figures astride an elephant.

Petrini's Source

Predominantly, Petrini draws his content from De Fer's 1698 wall map of Asia. Amongst other details, for example, the text in Borneo explaining that diamonds can be found in its two rivers also appears on De Fer's wall map. Similarly, he also draws from De Fer regarding Barantola (Tibet), which is described as the abode of the 'Grand Lama, head of all the lamas, that is, of the Western Tatar priests.' For the title, Petrini drew on another Italian mapmaker, Cantelli da Vignola: although Petrini's work does not resemble Cantelli's 1683 Penisola Dell India di la dal Gange.

Apocryphal Lake Chiamay

The mythical Lake of Chiamay appears at the western extreme of the map, roughly in today's Assam, India. Early cartographers postulated that such a lake must exist to source the four important Southeast Asian river systems: the Irrawaddy, the Dharla, the Chao Phraya, and the Brahmaputra. This lake began to appear in maps of Asia as early as the 16th century and persisted well into the mid-18th century. Its origins are unknown but may originate in a lost 16th-century geography prepared by the Portuguese scholar Jao de Barros. It was also heavily discussed in the journals of Sven Hedin, who believed it to be associated with the Indian legend that a sacred lake, Mansarovar, linked several of the holy subcontinent river systems. There are even records that the King of Siam led an invasionary force to take control of the lake in the 16th century. Nonetheless, the theory of Lake Chiamay was ultimately disproved, and it disappeared from maps entirely by the 1760s.

Publication History and Census

Petrini engraved this map for inclusion in his Atlante Partenopeo in 1717. A single known example is cataloged in the Eran Lau collection of the National Library of Israel. No record on the market.