Description of Russia, Muscovy and Tartary, by Anthony Jenkinson, London 1562 (as reproduced in 1914 with Russian translations of the legends)
Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio
Anthony Jenkinson (1562 design); 1914 reproduction issued by the Russian Resettlement Administration in the Atlas Aziatskoi Rossii
How we know
mixed Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources.
Mixed: Jenkinson's own 1558-1560 journey (Moscow, Volga, Caspian, Bukhara) plus informant testimony for Cathay, Kirgiz, Kalmyk (Colmack) and Samoyed regions; the object is a 20th-century reproduction.
Research notes
- LOC catalogue dates the item 1562 but the object is a 1914 lithographic reproduction 'copied from Jenkinson's map published by V. Kordt' (Materialy po istorii russkoi kartografii). The sole surviving original 1562 London impression is in Wroclaw University Library (identified 1987); reproductions made before that, including Kordt's, follow Ortelius's 1570 reduced plate, so this object should be treated as a witness to the Ortelius state unless compared with the Wroclaw sheet. LOC 'created/published' field contains a garbled machine rendering of the Russian imprint.
- Europeana University of Tartu copies of the Ortelius plate to be checked separately (see candidates).
Why it matters
The Jenkinson map is the first English map of Russia and the first Western map built partly on a Central Asian journey; it spreads TARTARIA over the whole steppe from Crimea to the Ob and Tashkent and records ethnonyms (Cassackia, Colmack, Kirgessi, Nagaia) that later maps copied for two centuries. Its dependence chain (Jenkinson 1562 > Ortelius 1570 > De Jode 1578 > later) is central to the 'Tartaria on maps' question.
Places named
Russia; Muscovy; Tartaria (across the steppe); Cassackia; Nagaia; Tumen; Colmack; Molgomzaia; Kitaia lacus; Samarcand; Boghar; Taskent; Kirgessi; Mare Caspium; Shamarghan; Media; Persia
Who copied whom
- this one reproduces it (probable)1914 reproduction of Jenkinson 1562, probably via the Ortelius plate (Kordt)
Keep exploring
The maps drawn just before and just after this one.
