Vertue, George after Ralph Agas. Civitas Londinum Ano Dni circiter MDLX. [London:] Society of Antiquaries of London, 1737.

Vertue, George after Ralph Agas. Civitas Londinum Ano Dni circiter MDLX. [London:] Society of Antiquaries of London, 1737.

First Vertue edition. Eight sheets joined: sheet: 27 ½” x 72 ½”, 699mm x 1842mm; framed: 32” x 78”, 813mm x 1981mm.

Framed floating, mounted on linen. Chips and tears to margins. A 2” repaired tear to the upper margin of 3 of the top sheets, as well as a 2” crease to the upper margin. Closed tears to the upper edges of the bottom sheets. This large-scale, highly-detailed recreation of Elizabethan London by George Vertue (1648–1756) was derived from one of the earliest depictions of London, a woodcut plan titled Civitas Londinum (the title of the present map translates to: “London city around ad 1560;” note that “circiter” (“around”) is superscript, apparently an after-thought). The original woodcut plan, which Vertue refers to as being of “great Scarcity” in the title of this map, is often erroneously credited to Ralph Agas (ca. 1540–1621). Vertue is the only one to have made the attribution, but Agas only started as a surveyor in 1566, five years after the original was published. Although the present map, produced in 1737, derives from a now non-existent plan first published in 1561, only three copies are known today, all from a later edition ca. 1633. The map covers the cities of London and Westminster from the Tower of London in the East to Westminster Abbey in the West, as well as the bulland bear-baiting pits — near where the Globe Theatre stood and stands — and Winchester Palace south of the Thames. Other notable landmarks include London Bridge, Old St. Paul’s Cathedral (before the Great Fire of London and sans steeple, which fell in 1561) and Scotland Yard. George Vertue, himself a prominent early-XVIIIc engraver and antiquarian, first exhibited this plan at the Society of Antiquaries of London on 21 March 1737. Since the original woodcut map is not known in any original examples, the present map is among the only depictions of Tudor London still available to collectors