Map · Latin

New and complete description of Russia, Muscovy and Tartary, London 1562: the sole surviving original impression, Wroclaw University Library

Nova absolutaque Russiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio

Anthony Jenkinson (author); Clement Adams (engraver, per literature); London 1562

Map: New and complete description of Russia, Muscovy and Tartary, London 1562, Jenkinson, 1562 — Picture: Wroclaw University Library. See it at full size at the library

How we know

mixed Part firsthand observation, part drawn from other sources.

Mixed: firsthand for Jenkinson's Volga-Caspian-Bukhara route of 1558-1560 (W044); informant testimony for Colmack, Kirgessi, Molgomzaia, Kitaia and Cathay (the legends state that the information was obtained from merchants and Tartars).

Research notes

Only known impression; Ortelius (1570), De Jode (1578) and later maps derive from it. The Wroclaw copy is larger and more pictorial than the Ortelius plate; differences between them are themselves evidence of editorial reduction.
Found via Europeana search 'Russiae Moscoviae et Tartariae descriptio' (17 hits).

Why it matters

The unique surviving 1562 original, identified in Wroclaw in 1987: it lets the inventory compare Jenkinson's own sheet with the Ortelius 1570 reduction (next record) and the 1914 Russian reproduction (earlier record), resolving the transmission chain for the most influential 16th-century 'Tartaria' map.

Places named

Russia; Muscovy; Tartaria across the steppe; Mare Caspium; Nagaia; Cassackia; Colmack; Kirgessi; Molgomzaia; Taskent; Samarcand; Boghar; Persia; India border