Richard William Seale, da Christoph Cellarius (Keller), Macedonia, Thessalia, Epirus

Matteo Giro

Etching print

Detailed map of northern Greece and the southern Balkans, derived from the studies that Christoph Keller, known as Cellarius, dedicated to the reconstruction of classical geography. The map is included with the editions of Notitia Orbis Antiqui and Geographia Antiqua, published from 1686, the plates of which, engraved by William Herny Toms and Richard William Seale, provide a precise description of the Eastern European territories occupied by the Roman Empire. In the map on display, the master engraver Seale traces the region of Thessaly between the Aegean, Adriatic and Ionian seas between 1740 and 1762: the territories beyond the Prefecture of the Illyrian Praetorium which, at the time of Constantine the Great, included the Balkan provinces from Macedonia to Thessaly, Crete to Hellas, the two Epiri to Illyria, Dacia to Triballia, and Upper Moesia to the Pannonie as far as Valeria.

Bibliography: Brunet I, 1724; Ebert 3868; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers, (1999), I, p. 134; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers, (2004), IV, p. 249; K. Batten-F. Bennett, The Printed Maps of Devon: County Maps 1575-1837, (1996), pp. 53-54.